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Identity Unknown

On sale

8th October 2024

Price: £29.99

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Selected: Audiobook Downloadable / ISBN-13: 9781405562355

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THE THRILLING NEW KAY SCARPETTA MYSTERY FROM THE WORLDWIDE BESTSELLER – SOON TO BE AN ORIGINAL SERIES ON PRIME VIDEO


‘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

Reviews

SUN
One of the all-time greats of this genre
BOOKLIST
An especially good entry in the series
SUNDAY TIMES
Astonishing . . . Thirty years on, there's still no other crime writer like her
GUARDIAN
One of the best crime writers writing today
MIRROR
Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns
-
PRAISE FOR PATRICIA CORNWELL
-
PRAISE FOR UNNATURAL DEATH
HEAT
Slick, fast-paced and brilliant
THE TIMES
Combines nerve-jangling tension with stomach-turning physical detail . . . A thriller that's out of this world
MIRROR
Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns
EXPRESS
The Agatha Christie of the DNA age
DAILY TELEGRAPH
The top gun in this field
THE TIMES
America's most stimulating and chilling writer of crime fiction
DAILY TELEGRAPH
The top gun in this field
SUNDAY TIMES
Thirty years on, there's still no other crime writer like her
DAILY MAIL
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
EXPRESS
The Agatha Christie of the DNA age
MAIL ON SUNDAY
The queen of the forensic thriller
M. J. ARLIDGE
Sinister, surprising and utterly unputdownable. Cornwell at her brilliant best
CHRIS WHITAKER
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
SUN
Cutting-edge
ANDREA MARA
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
CHRIS WHITAKER
A chilling, thrilling, macabre masterpiece. Unnatural Death is Patricia Cornwell at her mesmerising finest. The best just got better
FINANCIAL TIMES
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
BBC
A pioneer of the genre of forensic psychological thriller
THE TIMES
America's most stimulating and chilling writer of crime fiction
HEAT
Cornwell really is in a league of her own
-
PRAISE FOR PATRICIA CORNWELL
GUARDIAN
One of the best crime writers writing today
MAIL ON SUNDAY
The queen of the forensic thriller
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
When it comes to forensic sciences, nobody can touch Cornwell
SUNDAY POST
Another heart-stopping read