Identity unknown - patricia cornwell

The next installment in the popular Kay Scarpetta series from #1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell.

Nobel laureate and advisor to the White House Sal Giordano is found dead in the middle of an abandoned theme park.

When Virginias chief medical examiner Dr.

Kay Scarpetta is alerted about the case, shes warned that the victim is someone she knows.

When she hears who it is, shes devastated.

While teaching in Rome for a summer during the early days of her career, she met Giordano.

What began as an intense love affair evolved into a life long friendship, and now hes suddenly and bizarrely dead.

Scarpettas Secret Service investigator niece Lucy says that it appears he was dropped out of an unidentified flying craft, his skin red from some type of radiation.

When Scarpetta does the autopsy, she finds yet another inexplicable surprise.

While it becomes increasingly suspicious that otherworldly forces could be responsible for Giordanos death, she detects the presence of a more likely earthbound explanation that in her mind is far more evil.