Identity Unknown

The 120-million-copy bestseller returns with a gripping new thriller. Autopsies can reveal the dead's secrets, and this victim is sending Kay Scarpetta a message...

PRAISE FOR UNNATURAL DEATH

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

Sinister, surprising and utterly unputdownable. Cornwell at her brilliant best

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

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

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

One of the best crime writers writing today

Cornwell really is in a league of her own

One of the all-time greats of this genre

Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns

The top gun in this field

America's most stimulating and chilling writer of crime fiction

The Agatha Christie of the DNA age

The queen of the forensic thriller

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.