Unnatural Exposure (novel)

Unnatural Exposuree

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
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. 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. 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.