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
Newsletter Signup
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Reviews
Astonishing . . . Thirty years on, there's still no other crime writer like her
Thirty years on, there's still no other crime writer like her
Cutting-edge
A chilling, thrilling, macabre masterpiece. Unnatural Death is Patricia Cornwell at her mesmerising finest. The best just got better
America's most stimulating and chilling writer of crime fiction
One of the best crime writers writing today
Sinister, surprising and utterly unputdownable. Cornwell at her brilliant best
The top gun in this field
Combines nerve-jangling tension with stomach-turning physical detail . . . A thriller that's out of this world
When it comes to forensic sciences, nobody can touch Cornwell
PRAISE FOR UNNATURAL DEATH
Cornwell really is in a league of her own
America's most stimulating and chilling writer of crime fiction
The queen of the forensic thriller
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
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
Another heart-stopping read
PRAISE FOR PATRICIA CORNWELL
An especially good entry in the series
The top gun in this field
The Agatha Christie of the DNA age
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
The queen of the forensic thriller
Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns
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 all-time greats of this genre
PRAISE FOR PATRICIA CORNWELL
Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns
Slick, fast-paced and brilliant
The Agatha Christie of the DNA age
One of the best crime writers writing today
