- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday July 22 2008 15.39 BST
1956-
"I still have hanging on my wall a poem I wrote at the age of nine about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Then, already, I was very deeply touched by grief and violence."
Birthplace
Miami, US
Education
Universities in Bristol and North Carolina, US (English literature)
Other jobs
Crime reporter, computer analyst in a medical examiner's office (the hundreds of autopsies she witnessed there inspired the Kay Scarpetta series).
Did you know?
One Christmas, when Cornwell was nine years old, her mother attempted to give her and her two brothers to evangelist Billy Graham (Cornwell later wrote his wife's biography).
Critical verdict
Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta series increases at the rate of roughly one novel a year (each meticulously researched) and features horrifyingly precise forensics. She has also written for children with Life's Little Fable (hopefully less clinical than her adult work), and is perhaps mellowing, to the point of writing a Christmas book, Scarpetta's Winter Table, with an emphasis on recipes rather than autopsies.
Recommended works
Postmortem (the first Scarpetta novel); From Potter's Field.
Influences
PD James, though Cornwell takes the forensics detail much further.
Now read on
Try Sara Paretsky's VI Warshawski novels for one of the original tough female 'tecs - Burn Marks, Killing Orders and Toxic Shock. Other forensics-heavy reads include Robin Cook's Acceptable Risk, Eileen Dreyer's Bad Medicine and Ridley Pearson's Chain of Evidence.
Adaptations
There are rumours that From Potter's Field is heading for the big screen.
Useful links and work online
Work online
· Excerpt: At Risk
Background
· Patricia Cornwell official site
· Patricia Cornwell page on the Penguin website
