Identity Unknown

The gripping new Kay Scarpetta thriller for 2024

By: Patricia Cornwell

Narrated by: January LaVoy

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

Critic reviews

PRAISE FOR UNNATURAL DEATH

A chilling, thrilling, macabre masterpiece. Unnatural Death is Patricia Cornwell at her mesmerising finest. The best just got better (CHRIS WHITAKER)

Sinister, surprising and utterly unputdownable. Cornwell at her brilliant best (M. J. ARLIDGE)

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 (ANDREA MARA)

An especially good entry in the series

PRAISE FOR PATRICIA CORNWELL

One of the best crime writers writing today

Astonishing . . . Thirty years on, there's still no other crime writer like her

The top gun in this field

America's most stimulating and chilling writer of crime fiction

Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns

A pioneer of the genre of forensic psychological thriller

The Agatha Christie of the DNA age

The queen of the forensic thriller

Cutting-edge

When it comes to forensic sciences, nobody can touch Cornwell

Slick, fast-paced and brilliant

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)

Combines nerve-jangling tension with stomach-turning physical detail . . . A thriller that's out of this world

Another heart-stopping read

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

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

PRAISE FOR PATRICIA CORNWELL (-)

Thirty years on, there's still no other crime writer like her

Cornwell really is in a league of her own

One of the all-time greats of this genre