Barb's Book Reviews: Review of "Identity Unknown: A Kay Scarpetta Thriller" by Patricia Cornwell

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Review of "Identity Unknown: A Kay Scarpetta Thriller" by Patricia Cornwell

This review was first posted on Mystery & Suspense Magazine. Check it out for features, interviews, and reviews. https://www.mysteryandsuspense.com/id...

3.5 stars

In this 28th book in the 'Kay Scarpetta' series, the medical examiner investigates the death of a child and the murder of a Nobel Prize winner. The book can be read as a standalone, but familiarity with the characters is a bonus.

*****

Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia, is outraged by the death of 7-year-old Luna Briley.

Luna's body shows signs of violent gripping and throttling, and the child died from a gunshot to the head.

Luna's parents, Ryder and Piper Briley, claim their daughter shot herself by accident, but Scarpetta thinks they're lying. So Kay orders her death investigator, Fabian Etienne, to track down all of Luna's medical records - to document every old and new injury - for evidence of child abuse.

This is a tricky situation because the Brileys are billionaires and know high-level people willing to pull strings for them.

In fact, almost as soon as Luna's body arrives at the medical examiner's office, the Brileys start calling the police chief, city manager, and mayor, and they send a funeral service hearse to pick up Luna's body. Scarpetta refuses to release the child's remains before her examination is complete, and the Brileys threaten Kay with their 'super-lawyers.'

Before Scarpetta can finish her report on Luna, she gets another case related to the Brileys. The body of a missing person, astrophysicist Sal Giordano, a Nobel laureate, is discovered at the abandoned Oz theme park owned by Ryder Briley.

Kay hears the news from her niece, Lucy Farinelli, a Secret Service Agent and helicopter pilot.

Lucy explains that radar detected an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon (UAP) hovering over the Oz theme park that morning. Lucy was dispatched to search the area, and observed Giordano's broken naked body in the middle of Oz's Haunted Forest.

Scarpetta is especially dismayed by the news because she had a brief romance with Sal Giordano decades ago, and has been friends with him ever since. In fact Kay saw Sal on the day he disappeared. Kay knew Sal was driving to West Virginia's Green Bank Observatory, and she brought him a gift basket of food to take on the road. Giordano never made it to Green Bank, and presumably was abducted along the way.

Lucy and her head of investigations, Pete Marino, are flown to Oz in Lucy's helicopter.

Along the way, Pete - who believes in things like the Yeti and Sasquatch - suggests that Giordano was taken by space aliens who experimented on him and dropped him from a UFO.

Scarpetta, however, settles on a more mundane scenario - that Sal was abducted by an unknown person (or persons), tortured, and thrown out of a human-made craft.

It turns out that trace evidence on Giordano's body matches trace evidence on Luna Briley's pajamas, which seems to connect the two deaths. Scarpetta discusses the cases with her husband, FBI profiler Benton Wesley.....

......and they speculate that their nemesis, Carrie Grethen, may be back in town. Carrie is a murderous psychopath who may be in cahoots with the Brileys.

If Carrie is involved, Scarpetta and her family are in danger, and they're careful to watch their backs.

As the story unfolds, we get glimpses of the characters' histories and private lives. Pete Marino, who's always carried a (not so secret) torch for Kay, is now wed to Kay's sister Dorothy, an attention seeker who likes to wear tight clothes, drink, and gamble. Dorothy's flamboyance irritates Marino, and is causing trouble in the relationship.

We also learn that Kay and Benton's romance started as an adulterous affair, but eventually segued into a loving marriage.

The novel is engaging, my major criticism being the overly detailed descriptions. For example, the helicopter rides - in bad weather - are described in considerable detail, and a discussion between Kay and Benton is interspersed with a step by step depiction of Kay preparing a meal of fried chicken, biscuits, and potato fritters. This kind of exposition, which doesn't advance the story, takes up too much of the book.

On the upside, the Scarpetta books - with their bizarre murders and detailed autopsies - are always pleasantly creepy, and keep up with cutting edge technology. Recommended to fans of thrillers.

Thanks to NetGalley, Patricia Cornwell, and Grand Central Publishing for a copy of the book.

Rating: 3.5 stars

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Barb's Book Reviews

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Review of "Identity Unknown: A Kay Scarpetta Thriller" by Patricia Cornwell

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