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Fast Facts
- Cornwell is a descendent of Harriet Beecher Stowe and has said that her favorite novel is Uncle Tom's Cabin.
- As a child Cornwell moved to North Carolina with her mom and two brothers. The Reverend Billy Graham and his wife Ruth happened to live just two miles down the road from them. Cornwell eventually befriended Ruth, who gave her a leather bound journal and encouraged her to write.
- In the 1980s Cornwell wrote three novels, but they were all rejected by publishers. Kay Scarpetta was a minor character in these books, and Cornwell wisely took the advice of an editor who told her to make Scarpetta a more prominent figure in her stories.
- Cornwell has been the recipient of numerous awards for her work. Postmortem made her the only author ever to win five major mystery awards in a single year for a first novel (the Edgar, Creasy, Anthony and Macavity awards, in addition to the French Prix du Roman d'Adventurei). She also won Britain's prestigious Gold Dagger Award for Cruel and Unusual and the 1999 Sherlock Award for best detective created by an American author.
- In 2000 Cornwell helped push a bill through the Senate that increased funding for crime labs in the United States, in order to ease the strain of constant backlog under which many of them operate.
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Bio
 A native of Miami, Florida, Patricia Cornwell attended Davidson College in North Carolina, graduating in 1979 with a B.A. in English. She began working for the Charlotte Observer that year and won an investigative reporting award from the North Carolina Press Association for a series of articles she wrote on prostitution and crime in Charlotte. She spent six years working for the Virginia Chief Medical Examiner's office --- first as a technical writer and then as a computer analyst --- and also served as a volunteer police officer.
It's only fitting (given her background) that Cornwell would create a strong-willed character such as Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Virginia's chief medical examiner. She made her debut in Cornwell's first novel, the internationally acclaimed Postmortem, published in 1990. Cornwell has since written 11 more books featuring Scarpetta, who has had to investigate a number of horrific crimes over the years. The unfortunate victims have included a reclusive writer (Body of Evidence, 1991); young couples (All That Remains, 1992); an 11-year-old girl (The Body Farm, 1994); and an investigative reporter (Cause of Death, 1996).
In From Potter's Field (1995), a naked body is discovered in Central Park on Christmas Day, and a sadistic killer is armed with a deadly virus in Unnatural Exposure (1997). Point of Origin (1998) is about a killer on the loose who nearly destroyed the lives of Scarpetta and those closest to her, and in Black Notice (1999) a foreign ship arrives in Richmond with an unidentified body on board. Scarpetta confronts one of her most baffling cases in Cruel and Unusual (1993), while the medical examiner herself becomes an object of suspicion and criminal investigation in The Last Precinct (2000).
Cornwell's latest book in the series is Blow Fly. This time, Scarpetta has left Virginia in search of some much needed rest and relaxation --- but soon finds herself entangled in a conspiracy and murder in Florida.
On a trip to London in 2002, Cornwell met John Grieve, Chief Investigator at Scotland Yard and an expert on Jack the Ripper. Their discussions of the grizzly 19th century murders --- along with a visit to the original crime scenes --- led her to write Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed, in which she argues that the Ripper was actually British Impressionist painter Walter Sickert. This controversial book was a success and marked her first appearance on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list.
Cornwell's first book, An Uncommon Friend, was released in 1983. It is a biography of Ruth Bell Graham, the wife of evangelist Billy Graham and an old family friend. Cornwell re-released the book in 1997 under the title Ruth, A Portrait, adding a new introduction and epilogue.
Cornwell's other works include Hornet's Nest (1997) and Southern Cross (1998), both of which feature the trio of Police Chief Judy Hammer, Deputy Chief Virginia West and young reporter Andy Brazil. Hammer and Brazil returned in 2001 in Isle of Dogs. She has also written Scarpetta's Winter Table, Food to Die For: Secrets from Kay Scarpetta's Kitchen, and Life's Little Fable, her first book for children.
In 1999 Cornwell, with Virginia Governor James Gilmore, helped establish the Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine, the first forensic training facility of its kind in the nation, and serves as the Institute's Chairman of the Board. She is also involved in a number of charities that support such causes as forensic science, children's health, literary centers, victim's rights and animal rescue.
Cornwell currently resides in Greenwich, Connecticut.
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