THE THRILLING NEW KAY SCARPETTA MYSTERY FROM THE WORLDWIDE BESTSELLER
‘Iconic. Bold. Brilliant. Identity Unknown is hauntingly original, impossibly clever and devilishly daring. Scalpel-sharp storytelling, trademark twists and characters that feel like family, this series is one of the all-time greats’ CHRIS WHITAKER, author of Sunday Times bestseller All the Colours of the Dark
Summoned to an unnerving, abandoned theme park to retrieve a body, Dr Kay Scarpetta is devastated to learn that the victim is a man she once loved. While teaching in Rome during the early days of her career, Scarpetta had a love affair with acclaimed astrophysicist Sal Giordano that led to a lifelong friendship.
The murder scene is bizarre, with a crop circle of petals around the body, and Giordano’s skin is strangely red. Scarpetta’s niece Lucy believes he was dropped from an unidentified flying craft. Scarpetta knows an autopsy can reveal the dead’s secrets, but she is shocked to find her friend seems to have deliberately left her a clue.
As the investigators are torn between suspicions of otherworldly forces, and of Giordano himself, Scarpetta detects an explanation closer to home that, in her mind, is far more evil . . .
DISCOVER THE SERIES THAT SHAPED THE WORLD OF CRIME FICTION
‘One of the best crime writers writing today’ Guardian
‘Thirty years on, there’s still no other crime writer like her’ Sunday Times
‘Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns’ Mirror
‘In a league of her own’ Heat
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Reviews
The queen of the forensic thriller
A pioneer of the genre of forensic psychological thriller
Classic Cornwell with an up-to-the-minute twenty-first-century plot - an intoxicating blend that proves Scarpetta is still queen of the autopsy and Cornwell is still queen of crime fiction. An utterly thrilling roller coaster ride
Thirty years on, there's still no other crime writer like her
Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns
The queen of the forensic thriller
Combines nerve-jangling tension with stomach-turning physical detail . . . A thriller that's out of this world
Slick, fast-paced and brilliant
Cornwell really is in a league of her own
An especially good entry in the series
A chilling, thrilling, macabre masterpiece. Unnatural Death is Patricia Cornwell at her mesmerising finest. The best just got better
Iconic. Bold. Brilliant. Identity Unknown is hauntingly original, impossibly clever and devilishly daring. Scalpel-sharp storytelling, trademark twists and characters that feel like family, this series is one of the all-time greats
Cornwell has been one of most reliable crime-fiction practitioners since Postmortem in 1990 introduced her forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta. Identity Unknown has Scarpetta investigating a murder and finding to her horror that the victim is a man she was once in love with - and who seems to have left her a clue. Cornwell on vintage form
One of the best crime writers writing today
The Agatha Christie of the DNA age
Scarpetta is one of the best known heroines in crime fiction . . . Here Cornwell gives her some humanity in that she is called to examine the corpse of a man with whom she had an intense affair many year ago
America's most stimulating and chilling writer of crime fiction
PRAISE FOR PATRICIA CORNWELL
When it comes to forensic sciences, nobody can touch Cornwell
PRAISE FOR UNNATURAL DEATH
PRAISE FOR PATRICIA CORNWELL
The top gun in this field
Cutting-edge
One of the best crime writers writing today
America's most stimulating and chilling writer of crime fiction
Sinister, surprising and utterly unputdownable. Cornwell at her brilliant best
One of the all-time greats of this genre
Astonishing . . . Thirty years on, there's still no other crime writer like her
Another heart-stopping read
Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns
The top gun in this field
The Agatha Christie of the DNA age
