Identity Unknown

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 accidentally shot herself, but Scarpetta suspects they’re lying. She orders her death investigator, Fabian Etienne, to track down all of Luna’s medical records to document every old and new injury as potential evidence of child abuse.

This is a tricky situation because the Brileys are billionaires with connections to high-level people willing to pull strings for them. Almost as soon as Luna’s body arrives at the medical examiner’s office, the Brileys begin calling the police chief, city manager, and mayor, and they even send a funeral service hearse to pick up Luna’s body. Scarpetta refuses to release the child’s remains until her examination is complete, prompting the Brileys to threaten her with their “super-lawyers.”

Before Scarpetta can finish her report on Luna, she receives another case related to the Brileys. The body of astrophysicist Sal Giordano, a Nobel laureate who had been missing, is discovered at the abandoned Oz theme park, which is owned by Ryder Briley. Scarpetta 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. She was dispatched to search the area and observed Giordano’s broken, naked body in the middle of Oz’s Haunted Forest.

Scarpetta is particularly 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. She knew Sal was driving to West Virginia’s Green Bank Observatory and even brought him a gift basket of food for the trip. Giordano never made it to Green Bank, and it is presumed he was abducted along the way.

Lucy and Scarpetta’s 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 then dropped him from a UFO. Scarpetta, however, leans toward a more plausible scenario: that Sal was abducted, tortured, and thrown from a human-made craft.

It turns out that trace evidence on Giordano’s body matches trace evidence found on Luna Briley’s pajamas, seemingly connecting the two deaths. Scarpetta discusses the cases with her husband, FBI profiler Benton Wesley, and they speculate that their old nemesis, Carrie Grethen, may be involved. Carrie is a murderous psychopath who may be in cahoots with the Brileys. If Carrie is indeed back in town, Scarpetta and her family are in danger, so they are careful to watch their backs.

As the story unfolds, readers are given glimpses into the characters’ histories and private lives. Pete Marino, who’s always harbored a (not-so-secret) torch for Kay, is now married to Kay’s sister, Dorothy. Dorothy, an attention-seeker who likes to wear tight clothes, drink, and gamble, irritates Marino, and this is causing trouble in their relationship. We also learn that Kay and Benton’s romance began as an adulterous affair but eventually blossomed into a loving marriage.

The novel is engaging, though my major criticism is the overly detailed descriptions. For example, the helicopter rides in bad weather are described in great 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—featuring bizarre murders and detailed autopsies—are always pleasantly creepy and keep up with cutting-edge technology. Recommended for fans of thrillers.

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