Identity Unknown
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4.2 • 705 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
From a bestselling author, a "hauntingly original, impossibly clever and devilishly daring" thriller in which Scarpetta receives a message from beyond the grave…(Chris Whitaker, author of All the Colors of the Dark)
“Identity Unknown is hauntingly original, impossibly clever and devilishly daring.” – Chris Whitaker
Autopsies can reveal the secrets of the dead.
And this victim is sending Scarpetta a message...
Summoned to an abandoned theme park to retrieve a body, Dr. Kay Scarpetta is devastated to learn that the victim is a man she once had an intense love affair with.
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...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Cornwell's diverting if overstuffed latest mystery for Kay Scarpetta (after Unnatural Death), Virginia's chief medical examiner investigates two bizarre, potentially linked crimes. First, Kay is called to examine the body of seven-year-old Luna Briley, daughter of billionaire Ryder and his wife, Piper, who claim Luna accidentally shot herself. After conducting an autopsy, however, Kay comes to believe the Brileys are guilty of child abuse—and likely murder. Meanwhile, Kay gets word that her former lover, Nobel-winning physicist Sal Giordano, has been killed and left on the grounds of Oz, an abandoned theme park founded by none other than Ryder Briley. When Kay and her friend, former detective Pete Marino, helicopter to Oz to recover Sal's remains, they find strange crop circles surrounding his corpse. Questions abound, including what Sal was working on at the time of his death, whether UFOs might be involved, and the uncomfortable possibility that his murder is linked to Luna Briley's untimely death. Cornwell gives each one their due, but an excess of subplots stifles the plot's momentum. This one's best-suited for devoted series fans.
Customer Reviews
Good Overall
This book was better than the last several books. I think it’s time to let Carrie Grethen go though.
Glued to the Pages
I have read every book in the Scarpetta series and this one is the best yet!
I am a Scarpetta fanatic, but this book was just ok.
I have been re reading the earlier books and they were maybe the same length, but spanned over weeks not a day or two. There were layers and layers to the stories. Not this one. It was very predictable.