
Patricia Cornwell was working at the Office Of The Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia when she got a publishing deal in 1990 for her first crime fiction novel. Postmortem introduced Dr Kay Scarpetta – fearless, diligent and humane in her role as, yes, Chief Medical Examiner – to the world, finding her on the trail of a serial killer.
Three decades later, Unnatural Death is Cornwell’s 27th Scarpetta novel. Once again set in Northern Virginia, the protagonist is called in for forensic examination after two renegades, on the run from law enforcement, are found brutally murdered. Amongst the evidence, found near an abandoned mineshaft, is a massive footprint. Should the reader assume the quote from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein which opens Unnatural Death to be a red herring – or something more sinister?
Over the years, Cornwell has been pretty smart when it comes to capturing the zeitgeist within her Scarpetta novels; on this occasion AI and other cutting-edge tech, Russian interference, fake news, and the dark web all feature in a disturbing tale: not one for the weak-stomached, but an intelligent crime thriller which will appeal to the millions who have followed Scarpetta’s grim escapades from the start. New readers – perhaps with an interest in CSI – will not feel short-changed, either.
Unnatural Death, Patricia Cornwell (Sphere)
Price: £22/£29.99 audiobook. Info: here
words DAVID NOBAKHT