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


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.


The New York Times Book Review, Marilyn Stasio
Cool, abrasive, with an edge sharper than a Stryker saw, the forensic pathologist dominates this thriller with her forceful personality as she tears around the country trying to contain an unidentified smallpox-like virus.


From AudioFile
In Cornwell's latest, she concocts a killer with a deadly biological agenda. Blair Brown just doesn't have the gritty determination for Kay Scarpetta and her law enforcement cohorts. While distinguishing the characters she's not able to capture the tension or complexities to drive the narrative. R.F.W. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Cornwell's latest will undoubtedly sell like hotcakes, given the runaway popularity of her Dr. Kay Scarpetta novels.In the eighth in the series, Scarpetta, Virginia's chief medical examiner, has been called to Ireland to help investigate a series of grisly murders in which the killer dismembers his victims. Imagine her horror when Scarpetta returns to the U.S. and finds the killer--or a terrifying copycat--has struck at home. Worse, the victims appear to have been exposed to a deadly, highly contagious smallpox-like virus. To complete her personal nightmare, Scarpetta may have been exposed to the virus, and the killer has started sending her gruesome e-mail messages. With the help of her savvy FBI agent niece Lucy, Scarpetta tracks the elusive killer as her own life hangs in the balance. The suspense builds to an unbearable pitch, but when the murderer's identity and motive are revealed, it's more puzzling than satisfying. No matter. A misstep at the end of an otherwise gripping thriller will do nothing to derail Cornwell's remarkable run of commercial success. The one-million-copy first printing ought to just about handle the demand. Emily Melton


From Kirkus Reviews
Whoever shot the latest unidentified female victim Dr. Kay Scarpetta's called out to examine--whoever cut off her head, dismembered her, and bagged her torso for disposal in a Virginia landfill--may have been doing her a favor. Though Virginia's chief medical examiner doesn't realize it until she's called out to an even more horrific death scene--an inoffensive old woman on Tangier Island who seems to have died of smallpox--the earlier victim had signs of the same ravaging illness, supposedly eradicated in 1977. The violence to the first victim, and the care taken to conceal her identity, would point to murder even if Scarpetta hadn't started to get sinister computer messages from somebody called ``deadoc,'' who soon goes on to order the President: ``apologize if not i will start on france'' [sic]. Arrayed against deadoc are the Richmond homicide squad (headed by Scarpetta's old friend Capt. Pete Marino), the Virginia State Police, the FBI (including Scarpetta's on-again lover Benton Wesley and her niece Lucy), the Center for Disease Control, and the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. But in true Cornwell fashion, the good guys are their own worst enemies: The state cops and the FBI are mired in turf wars; a slick state investigator's determined to arrest the wrong perp and smear Lucy for an old lesbian affair; the USAMRIID, woefully underfunded, has furloughed so many unessential employees that there's hardly a nurse to care for Scarpetta when she comes down with a fever she can only pray isn't smallpox. Cornwell's tenth (Hornet's Nest, 1997, etc.) shows her bestselling formula--in-your-face forensics, computer terrorism, agency infighting, soap-opera romance, penny-dreadful villain- -wearing a little thin. But fans, swept up in a fever of their own, won't care a bit. (First printing of 1,000,000; Literary Guild/Mystery Guild main selection; $750,000 ad/promo) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
Kay Scarpetta is back.


Download Description
The details of a body, discovered in a Virginia landfill, mirror that of a case Dr. Kay Scarpetta has been investigating in Ireland but for Scarpetta, the game has only just begun.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Always packed with unrelieved tension and constant surprises, a new novel from Patricia Cornwell is cause for celebration. Virginia's chief medical examiner, Kay Scarpetta, is called in to examine the remains of a woman found in a landfill, her body dismembered in the same expert way she'd seen before. And while Scarpetta is investigating, the bold killer contacts her through the Internet, inviting her to download the police photos, and signs off with the chilling name, deadoc. When Scarpetta and her niece discover that the victim was exposed to a rare smallpox-like virus before she died, she realizes that they re up against a killer with access to an incredible arsenal of deadly force -- and now it's directed at her!

FROM THE CRITICS

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.

Kirkus Reviews

Whoever shot the latest unidentified female victim Dr. Kay Scarpetta's called out to examine—whoever cut off her head, dismembered her, and bagged her torso for disposal in a Virginia landfill—may have been doing her a favor. Though Virginia's chief medical examiner doesn't realize it until she's called out to an even more horrific death scene—an inoffensive old woman on Tangier Island who seems to have died of smallpox—the earlier victim had signs of the same ravaging illness, supposedly eradicated in 1977. The violence to the first victim, and the care taken to conceal her identity, would point to murder even if Scarpetta hadn't started to get sinister computer messages from somebody called 'deadoc," who soon goes on to order the President: 'apologize if not i will start on france'[sic]. Arrayed against deadoc are the Richmond homicide squad (headed by Scarpetta's old friend Capt. Pete Marino), the Virginia State Police, the FBI (including Scarpetta's on-again lover Benton Wesley and her niece Lucy), the Center for Disease Control, and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. But in true Cornwell fashion, the good guys are their own worst enemies: The state cops and the FBI are mired in turf wars; a slick state investigator's determined to arrest the wrong perp and smear Lucy for an old lesbian affair; the USAMRIID, woefully underfunded, has furloughed so many unessential employees that there's hardly a nurse to care for Scarpetta when she comes down with a fever she can only pray isn't smallpox. Cornwell's tenth shows her best-selling formula—in-your-face forensics, computer terrorism, agency infighting, soap-opera romance,penny-dreadful villain—wearing a little thin. But fans, swept up in a fever of their own, won't care a bit.