FEATURE AUTHOR

Patricia Cornwell

Book of the Dead

From www.patriciacornwell.com

Patricia Cornwell was born on June 9, 1956, in Miami, Florida, and grew up in Montreat, North Carolina.

Following graduation from Davidson College in 1979, she began working at the Charlotte Observer, rapidly advancing from listing television programs to writing feature articles to covering the police beat. She won an investigative reporting award from the North Carolina Press Association for a series of articles on prostitution and crime in downtown Charlotte.

A Time for Remembering, her award-winning biography of Mrs. Billy Graham, was published in 1983. From 1984 to 1990 she worked as a technical writer and a computer analyst at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia.

Her first crime novel, Postmortem, was published in 1990. Initially rejected by seven major publishing houses, it became the first novel to win the Edgar, Creasey, Anthony, and Macavity awards as well as the French Prix du Roman d’Aventure in a single year. In Postmortem, Cornwell introduced Dr. Kay Scarpetta as the intrepid Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Following the success of her first novel, Cornwell has written a string of bestsellers featuring Kay Scarpetta, her detective sidekick Marino, and her volatile niece, Lucy. Titles include: Body of Evidence (1991), Point of Origin (1998), The Last Precinct (2000) and Predator (2005).

In addition to the Scarpetta novels, she has written three best-selling novels featuring Andy Brazil: Hornet’s Nest (1996), Southern Cross (1998), and Isle of Dogs (2001); two cook books: Scarpetta’s Winter Table (1998) and Food to Die For (2001); and a children’s book: Life’s Little Fable (1999).

In May, 2007, she was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who cited her for enlightening society through her “commitment to the principles of academic excellence and understanding for all.”

Cornwell’s work is translated into thirty-two languages across more than thirty-five countries, and she is regarded as one of the major international best-selling authors.

A letter from Patricia Cornwell...

Dear Reader,

“Scarpetta is back” means more than the obvious. She’s reemerged with force as a highly professional, passionate woman in a time that has changed dramatically since her debut in 1990. Back then, no one knew what a CSI was, and DNA had scarcely become admissible in court. The interior world of forensic science and medicine was a dark and chilly secret, and there was no 9/11, no war in Iraq, no pervasive Internet or fear of computer hacking. Crime-solving was more linear, the world a gentler place.

With this fifteenth book in the series, I decided it was time to rethink, recast and renew, and to give you a literary journey as different as it is familiar – one that I think you’ll find even more compelling than before, and, in some instances, rather shocking.

If you’ll allow me to be so bold, I am very proud of this book. As always, I’m grateful to you for allowing me the privilege of telling my stories.

Patricia Cornwell