 First edition | |
| Author | Patricia Cornwell |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Kay Scarpetta |
| Genre | Crime fiction |
| Publisher | G. P. Putnam's Sons |
Publication date | 1997 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover, paperback) |
| Pages | 367 |
| ISBN | 0-399-14285-1 |
| OCLC | 39285687 |
| Preceded by | Cause of Death |
| Followed by | Point of Origin |
Unnatural Exposure is a crime fiction novel by Patricia Cornwell. It is the eighth book in the Dr. Kay Scarpetta series. [1] The story is set in Richmond, Virginia and Ireland.
Virginia Chief 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 Scarpetta's rival, Investigator Percy Ring. But this is no run-of-the-mill serial killer. A shadowy figure has plans involving mutant smallpox, mass murder, and messing with Scarpetta's mind by e-mailing her hot naked photos of the murder scenes, along with cryptic AOL chat-room messages. [1] Central to the plot is the case of Janet Parker, the last person known to have died of smallpox, which she contracted in 1978 due to a lab accident in Birmingham, England, after the disease was eradicated in the wild. Cornwell makes the villain a junior employee of the lab at the time who was made a scapegoat for the accident and whose career was blighted as a result. This provides the plot with a credible source for the virus and a motive for the central crime.
The emergency response is complicated by a Federal budget freeze, when all "non-essential" government employees are sent home. Cornwell says in an introduction to a 2008 reprint that a decade ago the idea of a deliberate virus threat seemed fanciful and improbable, and she got more access to government facilities like the CDC for researching the book than she would have got a decade later. She said that her "modus operandi when I write a book is to ask my characters where they are and what they are doing. Then I focus on an image. From that image comes the story .... ".
Patricia Cornwell is an American crime writer. She is known for her best-selling novels featuring medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, of which the first was inspired by a series of sensational murders in Richmond, Virginia, where most of the stories are set. The plots are notable for their emphasis on forensic science, which has influenced later TV treatments of police work. Cornwell has also initiated new research into the Jack the Ripper killings, incriminating the popular British artist Walter Sickert. Her books have sold more than 120 million copies.
Kay Scarpetta is a fictional character inspired by former Virginia Chief Medical Examiner Marcella Farinelli Fierro MD (retired). She is the protagonist in a series of crime novels written by Patricia Cornwell noted for its use of recent forensic technology in Scarpetta's investigations.
Harvey Murray Glatman was an American serial killer active during the late 1950s. He was known in the media as the Lonely Hearts Killer and the Glamour Girl Slayer. He would use several pseudonyms, posing as a professional photographer to lure his victims with the promise of a modeling career.
Robert Christian Boes Hansen, popularly known as the Butcher Baker, was an American serial killer active in Anchorage, Alaska, between 1972 and 1983. Hansen abducted, raped and murdered at least seventeen women, many of whom he may have attacked in the wilderness with a Ruger Mini-14 and hunting knives. Hansen was captured in 1983 and sentenced to 461 years' imprisonment without the possibility of parole. He died in 2014 of natural causes at age 75.
Postmortem is a 1990 crime fiction novel by author Patricia Cornwell and her debut novel. The first book of the Dr. Kay Scarpetta series, it received the 1991 Edgar Award for Best First Novel.
Trace is a 2004 crime fiction novel by Patricia Cornwell. It is the thirteenth book of the Dr. Kay Scarpetta series.
Body of Evidence is a crime fiction novel by Patricia Cornwell. It is the second book in the Dr. Kay Scarpetta series.
All That Remains is a crime fiction novel by Patricia Cornwell. It is the third book of the Dr. Kay Scarpetta series.
Cruel and Unusual is a crime fiction novel by Patricia Cornwell. It is the fourth book in the Dr. Kay Scarpetta series.
The Body Farm is a crime fiction novel by Patricia Cornwell. It is the fifth book in the Dr. Kay Scarpetta series.
From Potter's Field is a crime fiction novel by Patricia Cornwell. It is the sixth book in the Dr. Kay Scarpetta series.
Black Notice is a crime novel by American writer Patricia Cornwell. It is the tenth book of the Dr. Kay Scarpetta series.
Point of Origin is a crime fiction novel by Patricia Cornwell. It is the ninth book in the Dr. Kay Scarpetta series.
Scarpetta is a novel by Patricia Cornwell. It was published in 2008 by G. P. Putnam's Sons. The book is a continuation of Cornwell's popular Kay Scarpetta series.
The Redhead murders is the media epithet used to refer to a series of unsolved homicides of redheaded females in the United States between October 1978 and 1992, believed to have been committed by an unidentified male serial killer. The murders believed to be related have occurred in states including Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The murders may have continued until 1992. The victims, many remaining unidentified for years, were usually women with reddish hair, whose bodies were abandoned along major highways in the United States. Officials believe that the women were likely hitchhiking or may have engaged in prostitution.
The I-70 killer is an unidentified American serial killer who is known to have killed six store clerks in the Midwest in the spring of 1992. His nickname derives from the fact that several of the stores in which his victims worked were located a few miles off of Interstate 70.
Dust is a 2013 crime novel written by crime author Patricia Cornwell, her 21st book by chronological order in the Kay Scarpetta series. It deals with the murder, of a young girl, which bears peculiar resemblance to numerous preceding deaths and puts the female protagonist, Dr Kay Scarpetta to stare in the face of what could possibly be a deep-seated, high-profile bureaucrat conspiracy and a plot which risks her own life at the mercy of a psychopathic serial killer.
The Sleepy Hollow Killer is the name of an unidentified South African rapist and serial killer, thought to be responsible for the rapes and murders of at least 13 women, most likely sex workers, around Pietermaritzburg and the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal. His signature was to strangle his victims using their panties, a characteristic shared with the murders of three prostitutes in 2007, who are also considered possible victims.
Dr. No is the nickname given to a suspected American serial killer thought to be responsible for the murders of at least nine women and girls in Ohio, between 1981 and 1990. As victims, Dr. No primarily chose prostitutes working in parking lots and truck stops located alongside Interstate 71. There are suspicions that he committed three similar killings in New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania, between 1986 and 1988.
The Denver Prostitute Killer was an unidentified American serial killer responsible for the murder of at least 17 women and girls in Denver and its various suburbs between 1975 and 1995. In 2005, based upon results from DNA profiling, it was determined that the most likely killer was Billy Edwin Reid who was previously arrested and charged with the 1989 murder of Lannell Williams and Lisa Kelly. Reid was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for those specific murders. The killings were grouped together only in 2008 – until then, each of these crimes was considered to have been committed by different people.