Unnatural Exposure (Kay Scarpetta) (Paperback)

by Patricia Cornwell (Author) "Night fell clean and cold in Dublin, and wind moaned beyond my room as if a million pipes played the air..." (more)
Key Phrases: facial spray, unnatural exposure, Coast Guard, Keith Pleasants, Patricia Cornu (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Virginia Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta has a bloody puzzle on her hands: five headless, limbless cadavers in Ireland, plus four similar victims in a landfill back home. Is a serial butcher loose in Virginia? That's what the panicked public thinks, thanks to a local TV reporter who got the leaked news from her boyfriend, Scarpetta's vile rival, Investigator Percy Ring. But the butchered bodies are so many red herrings intended to throw idiots like Ring off the track. Instead of a run-of-the-mill serial killer, we're dealing with a shadowy figure who has plans involving mutant smallpox, mass murder, and messing with Scarpetta's mind by e-mailing her gory photos of the murder scenes, along with cryptic AOL chat-room messages. The coolest innovation: Scarpetta's gorgeous genius niece, Lucy, equips her with a DataGlove and a VPL Eyephone, and she takes a creepy virtual tour of the e-mailed crime scene.

Unnatural Exposure boasts brisk storytelling, crackling dialogue, evocative prose about forensic-science sleuthing, and crisp character sketches, both of familiar characters like Scarpetta's gruff partner Pete Marino and bit players like the landfill employee falsely accused by Ring. Plus, let's face it: serial killers are old hat. Cornwell's most vivid villains are highly plausible backstabbing colleagues like Ring, who plots to destroy Lucy's FBI career by outing her as a lesbian. Some readers object to the rather abrupt ending, but, hey, it's less jarring than Hannibal's, and it's the logical culmination of Cornwell's philosophy about human nature. To illuminate the novel's finale, read Cornwell's remarks on paranoia in her Amazon.com interview. --Tim Appelo --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Kay Scarpetta grapples with a serial killer who contacts her via the Internet in this latest from crime novelist Cornwell, who is involved in some headline-making scandal of her own: In a recent trial, she was named as the former lover of a woman whose husband attempted to murder her in a rage over the affair.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Berkley; First edition (July 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425163407
• ISBN-13: 978-0425163405
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (256 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #45,844 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #34 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Medical
  #36 in	Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Authors, A-Z > ( C ) > Cornwell, Patricia

• This is item 8 in The Kay Scarpetta Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars ANOTHER KAY SCARPETTA MYSTERY..., October 1, 2002

By	Lawyeraau (Balmoral Castle) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

This is a somewhat interesting, Dr. Kay Scarpetta mystery, replete with its usual attention to forensic detail, as well as a myriad of subplots. Though not her best novel, it still manages to entertain the reader.

Once again, Dr. Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner, finds herself on the hunt for a serial killer, when the body of an elderly, dismembered woman is discovered in a Virginia landfill. Moreover, a mutated, high tech, variant small pox virus appears to be on the loose, and Dr. Scarpetta finds herself receiving taunting emails from the alleged killer, signing as "deadoc". Couple all this with an overly ambitious and unscrupulous law enforcement agent named Percy Ring who arrests an obviously innocent man for the elderly woman's death, and the reader has an intriguing mystery to unravel.

Homicide Detective Pete Marino is pivotol to the success of this book. His relationship and repartee with Dr. Scarpetta contribute to many of the book's highlights, and it is he who gives dimension to the book, as he is simply a wonderful, down to earth character. Dr. Scarpetta's relationship with FBI Agent Wesley Benton is less memorable, as he is on the periphery of the story, for the most part, though in the end he provides closure for the torch Dr. Scarpetta was carrying for her ex-lover, Mark.

The only real fly in the ointment, however, is the continued appearance of Dr. Scarpetta's niece, Lucy, who is an obnoxious character. In the real world, Lucy would not be allowed to hold the position of responsibility that she does in the book, due to her compete immaturity. She is a loose cannon waitng to misfire at any moment. It flies in the face of her professionalism that Dr. Scarpetta seems unable to fathom this, but blood is thicker than water.

The ending is somewhat surprising, though in retrospect, the clues are, in fact, there for the reader to discern the identity of the killer. The problem is that the resolution occurs almost too abruptly, as if the author had only a limited number of pages in which to wrap it all up. While the book moves somewhat slowly for the most part, the last few chapters move at lightning speed. A better editing job may have helped make this book into a more cohesive, better written mystery. Still, Kay Scarpetta fans will find something to enjoy in this offering.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Misses the mark, July 31, 2000

By	Todd P. Last "rubatoguy" (Portland, OR, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've been a fan of Patricia' Cornwell's books for some time, and this one just not up to her usual level of quality.

The book has a wonderfully interesting idea regarding the MO of the killer, but dissapointingly, this idea along with the character of the killer, is not really developed to the extent that you expect from earlier Cornwell novels.

Most of the book revolves around sub-plots of the relationships between the many characters that have become part of Kay Scarpett's life over the series of Novels. Unfortunately this comes at the expense of the story about the villain and the crimes.

My preference is for the earlier, leaner, Kay Scarpetta books that concentrate on the murder mystery, the science of forensics, and the interplay between Marino and Kay.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A forensic thriller!, December 20, 2005

By	chriscaglegirl83 "chriscaglegirl83" (Texas) - See all my reviews

Virginia's chief medical examiner, Kay Scarpetta, is trapped in a nightmare of unsolved murders and a pernicious virus in this breathless thriller, where clues are elusive and the killer's threats are hurled through cyberspace.

Dr. Kay Scarpetta is newly returned from Dublin, where she was called in to examine the remains of a murder victim whose limbs and head were expertly severed--a signature of a cunning serial killer on the loose again after an eight-year sabbatical--when the same killer apparently strikes again, this time much closer to home to Scarpetta. The remains of a woman are found in a Virginia landfill, her body dismembered in the same expert way as in the Dublin case. After Scarpetta investigates the murder scene, the killer boldly contacts her through the Internet, inviting her to download photos of the murder victim and signing off with a chilling screen name: deadoc.

Scarpetta soon discovers inconsistencies between this new case and the serial murders she has been investigating. With the help of her niece, Lucy, and FBI computer expert, she takes an extraordinary virtual tour of the background of the e-mailed photo. But even as Scarpetta and Lucy probe illuminating details in virtual relaity, local authorities try to wrap up the case by charging the man who discovered the body. When Scarpetta determines that the victim was exposed to a rare smallpox-like virus before she died and, later, that herself may have been infected, she realizes that she is up against a killer with access to an incredible sophisticated arsenal of deadly force--a killer with a specific animus directed toward her.

Packed with unrelieved tension and constant surprises, Unnatural Exposure is the case of Kay Scarpetta's life--and a triumph for Patrica Cornwell.

I loved this book because of the high tension throughout and the attention paid to forensic details. Cornwell is defintely an author who just seems to get better and better.