Identity Unknown

· Sold by Grand Central Publishing
18 reviews
Ebook
400
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

From a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a heart-pounding thriller in which Scarpetta receives a message from beyond the grave.

SCARPETTA, based on the character Dr. Kay Scarpetta, is soon to be a streaming series starring Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis.

"Hauntingly original, impossibly clever and devilishly clever." —Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author of All the Colors of the Dark

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 ...
From a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a heart-pounding thriller in which Scarpetta receives a message from beyond the grave. SCARPETTA, based on the character Dr. Kay Scarpetta, is soon to be a streaming series starring Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis. "Hauntingly original, impossibly...

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Ratings and reviews

18 reviews
Dawn McMillan
December 24, 2025
Great read! This is the Cornwell storytelling I love and was missing in some of her Scarpetta novels written after "Point Of Origin". She is definitely back!!
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L Celeste Henning
October 9, 2026
This was a very good book!
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Jen̈ny Barosso
March 28, 2026
I love reading Patricia Cromwell novels!
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About the author

Patricia Cornwell is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and widely considered one of the world's top crime writers. In 1990, Patricia Cornwell sold her first novel, Postmortem, while working at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia. An auspicious debut, it went on to win the Edgar, Creasey, Anthony, and Macavity Awards, as well as the French Prix du Roman d’Aventures—the first book ever to claim all these distinctions in a single year. Growing into an international phenomenon, the Scarpetta series won Cornwell the Sherlock Award for best detective created by an American author, the Gold Dagger Award, the RBA Thriller Award, and the Medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters for her contributions to literary and artistic development.

Today, Cornwell’s novels and iconic characters are known around the world. Beyond the Scarpetta series, Cornwell has written the definitive nonfiction account of Jack the Ripper’s identity, cookbooks, a children’s book, a biography of Ruth Graham, and three other fictional series based on the characters Win Garano, Andy Brazil, and Captain Calli Chase. Cornwell continues exploring the latest space-age technologies and threats relevant to contemporary life. Her interests range from the morgue to artificial intelligence and include visits to Interpol, the Pentagon, the U.S. Secret Service, and NASA.

Cornwell was born in Miami. She grew up in Montreat, North Carolina, and now lives and works in Boston.

Patricia Cornwell is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and widely considered one of the world's top crime writers. In 1990, Patricia Cornwell sold her first novel, Postmortem, while working at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia. An auspicious debut, it went on to ...

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