UNITED STATES AUTHOR · FICTION · FORENSIC PATHOLOGISTS
Patricia Cornwell
Also known as: Patricia D. Cornwell, Cornwell/Patricia
Patricia Cornwell (born Patricia Carroll Daniels; June 9, 1956) 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 accused Walter Sickert of carrying out the Jack the Ripper killings. However, Sickert is not considered a serious suspect by most who study the case, and strong evidence shows he spent most of 1888 outside the UK, and was in France at the time of most of the Ripper murders.
It is two weeks before Christmas.
— from Cruel & unusual, 1993
Most acclaimed
Ruth, a portrait
1997
A biography of Ruth Bell Graham, wife of evangelist Billy Graham, discussing her childhood in China as the daughter of medical missionaries, her contribution to her husband's work, and her efforts to keep their home and family life intact.
At Risk
2007
A ‘one-off’ from the best-selling creator of the Dr Kay Scarpetta series, based on the serialisation in the New York Times.Moving between the chill of Cambridge, Massachusetts and the sultry humidity of Knoxville, Tennessee, Winston Garano, a police investigator, is instructed to look into a twenty-year-old murder case. Although Win reckons there are many more pressing current cases which should have higher priority, he gets on with the task, unaware of the can of worms he will prise open. With her hallmark qualities of deft characterisation, perfect research and tense story-telling, Patricia Cornwell has created a novel which entertains, intrigues and satisfies.
Cruel & unusual
1993
"11:05 P.M. Convicted murderer Ronnie Joe Waddell is pronounced dead in the Commonwealth of Virginia's electric chair." "In the morgue, Dr. Kay Scarpetta has been waiting for Waddell's body. It's a strange feeling, preparing for an autopsy before the subject is dead. But Scarpetta's been here before. As Virginia's chief medical examiner, she knows the tension of watching the clock as the execution hour draws near.". "Waddell's death isn't the only newsworthy event on this cold December night. Three hours after thirteen-year-old Eddie Heath goes out to a convenience store to buy a can of soup, his nude, grotesquely wounded body is found propped against a dumpster.". "Waddell's execution, the attack on Eddie - the two events seem unrelated until Scarpetta and Richmond police lieutenant Pete Marino remember that Waddell arranged his victim in a strikingly similar position to Eddie's. And then there's a new murder, the most puzzling of all." "The crime scenes yield few clues: old bloodstains, fragments of feather, and - most baffling - a bloody fingerprint that points Scarpetta to the one suspect who could not possibly have committed this murder.". "And somewhere in Virginia's corridors of power, perhaps even in her own office, lurks an enemy who will destroy Scarpetta unless she can produce the proof that will clear her name. With some help from her seventeen-year-old niece, computer whiz Lucy, as well as from her loyal friend Lieutenant Marino and FBI agent Benton Wesley, Scarpetta musters all her forensic expertise and investigative skills to uncover shocking secrets that will have vast repercussions.". "Cruel and Unusual moves bestselling author Patricia D. Cornwell in dramatic new directions, confirming the extraordinary range and power of this gifted, prizewinning writer."--BOOK JACKET.