I absolutely love Patricia Cornwell, so thought it would be a great idea if she began our Featured Author segment.
Born: June 9th 1956, Miami Florida
Graduated: 1979, Davidson College with a BA in English
First Job: Reporter for The Charlotte Observer listing TV programs rapidly promoted to writing featured articles on crime.
Patricia Cornwell’s first novel, Postmortem, was published by Scribner’s in 1990, after initially being rejected by seven major publishing houses. Now she is one of the major best-selling international authors with millions of books sold worldwide, translated into thirty-six languages in over fifty countries. She has won numerous awards including the Edgar Award, the Gold Dagger Award and the Galaxy British Book Awrard for the Direct Crime Thriller of the Year.
She immerses herself in her work and is very serious about her research. Among her many accomplishments she has become a helicopter pilot, obtained a motorcycle licence and become a certified scuba diver as she wanted to know what these ‘worlds’ were like, because she was writing about characters who were doing these things.
Her books in chronological order:
Scarpetta Series:
- Body of Evidence (1991)
- All That Remains (1992)
- Cruel and Unusual (1993)
- The Body Farm (1994)
- From Potter’s Field (1995)
- Cause of Death (1996)
- Unnatural Exposure (1997)
- Point of Origin (1998)
- Black Notice (1999)
- The Last Precinct (2000)
- Blow Fly (2003)
- Trace (2004)
- Predator (2005)
- Book of the Dead (2007)
- Scarpetta (2008)
- The Scarpetta Factor (Oct 2009)
Andy Brazil Series:
- Hornets Nest (1996)
- Southern Cross (1998)
- Isle of Dogs (2001)
Cook Books:
- Scarpetta’s Winter Table (1998)
- Food To Die For (2001)
Children’s Book:
- Life’s Little Fable (1999)
Patricia Cornwell was also intrigued by the serial killer, Jack the Ripper, and began her own investigation publishing her findings in The Portrait of a Killer: Jack The Ripper – Case Closed in 2002. A revised edition of this book with new evidence will be published sometime in the future.
Two novella’s, The Risk and The Front which have subsequently been published were originally featured in the NY Times (2006) and the London Times (2008) respectively as serials.
The latest news: Angelina Jolie is to play Dr. Kay Scarpetta in a planned series of films. Fox 2000 is buying the screen rights to all 16 books featuring Scarpetta. Patricia Cornwell is playing a key role in the planned first film.
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