Patricia Cornwell

Patricia Cornwell

"It is important to me to live in the world I write about" says Patricia Cornwell. "If I want a character to do or know something, I want to do or know the same thing."

Patricia Cornwell has flourished as an internationally known mystery writer doing just that. She has an uncanny eye and ear for murder, having spent time as an award-winning former crime reporter for the Charlotte Observer newspaper.

Cornwell also paid her dues by working for half a dozen years with the Virginia Chief Medical Examiner's Office and as a volunteer police officer. Using this personal background, she created a unique character in the fictional Dr. Kay Scarpetta in her first novel, Postmortem. Scarpetta is the chief Medical Examiner for Virginia and solves crimes with a high degree of sophistication and determination.

Postmortem was an instant best seller in the USA and around the world. In fact, the success of the book made her the only author ever to win five major mystery awards in a single year on both sides of the Atlantic for a first novel.

Cornwell has produced ten subsequent Scarpetta novels which have been eagerly read by fans around the world. Her current bestseller, Portrait of a Killer, focuses on Cornwell's extensive investigation into the century old puzzle of who really was the fiend known as Jack the Ripper. In addition, Cornwell has created a second very popular detective in the three books in her Andy Brazil series, as well as a cookbook, appropriately titled, "Food to Die For."

Patricia Cornwell is a graduate of Davidson College in North Carolina. She lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, and when she is not writing best selling mystery novels, she is an avid supporter and volunteer with several institutions that are concerned with forensic research, victim's support, and animal rescue.

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