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Patricia
Cornwell
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Patricia Cornwell was born
June 9, 1956, in Miami, FL. When her father walked out on his family for
his pregnant secretary she moved with her mother and brother to Montreat,
North Carolina, just two miles down the road from the evangelist Billy
Graham and his wife, Ruth. At one point, Cornwell's mother was so desperate
that she tried to "give" her kids to the Grahams. It was Ruth Graham who
encouraged her to pursue writing, and Cornwell began her book writing career
in 1983 with a biography of Ruth Graham. With Graham's encouragement, Patricia
Cornwell went to school at Davidson College in North Carolina, majoring
in English. |
While a student at Davidson
College in North Carolina, Cornwell met her future husband, Charles Cornwell,
17 years her senior, who also happened to be her English professor. They
wed when she was 24 and he was 41. (Her 10-year marriage ended in divorce
in 1989.) In 1979 Cornwell began her career as police reporter, winning
an investigative reporting award, but soon moved on to the Virginia Chief
Medical Examiner's Office in Richmond, where she was a computer analyst.
Much of what she observed in her work was incorporated into her first bestseller,
Postmortem.
Following the success of that novel, Cornwell quit her job to become a
full-time author. |
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| Patricia
Cornwell - Books |
| Patricia
Cornwell Kay Scarpetta Books |
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Postmortem
- by Patricia Daniels Cornwell
"Dazzling. . . Fascinating.
. . .A first-rate thriller" says "The Los Angeles Times" of "Postmortem",
in which medical examiner Kay Scarpetta sets out to unmask a maniac who
is leaving behind a gruesome trail of carnage and very few clues |
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Portrait
of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed
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Enlisting the help of forensic
experts, Cornwell examines all the physical evidence available: thousands
of documents and reports, fingerprints, crime-scene photographs, original
etchings and paintings, items of clothing, artists' paraphernalia, and
traces of DNA. Her unavoidable conclusion: Jack the Ripper was none other
than a respected painter of his day, an artist now collected by some of
the world's finest museums. |
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Hornet's
Nest
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Patricia Cornwell turns
from forensics to police procedures in her latest novel, Hornet's Nest.
This book is less a thriller
than a character study of the main characters: Judy Hammer, chief of police
in Charlotte, North Carolina; Hammer's deputy, Virginia West; and Andy
Brazil, a young reporter assigned to ride with the police as they go about
their jobs. |
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The
Last Precinct
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All the familiar faces--friend
and foe--are here: police captain Marino, Kay's niece Lucy, the so-called
Werewolf murderer, and (in memoriam) Kay's lover Benton Wesley and his
killer, Carrie Grethen. Kay, who nearly killed the Werewolf in self-defense
as Black Notice came to a close, now finds herself the target of a corrupt
police investigation that will dredge her darkest secrets from the deepest
corners of her past. |
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Body
Farm
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Dr. Kay Scarpetta travels
to North Carolina to investigate the murder of an 11-year-old girl, but
evidence does not add up, and she must conduct a gruesome experiment at
a remote research facility to find the answers. |
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Black
Notice - by Patricia Cornwell
"No one holds her head higher
than Kay Scarpetta. She is for many readers the capable female writ large-a
lightning rod for those who would destroy change at any price, yet a formidable
champion because of it." --Patricia Holt, San Francisco Chronicle |
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Cruel
& Unusual
by
Patricia Daniels Cornwell
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How could the fingerprints
of Ronnie Joe Waddell appear at the scene of a murdered psychic after Waddell
was executed in the electric chair? In the midst of many puzzling matters
come other difficult issues to confront Kay as she tries to do her job.
She becomes the object of hysterical media attention, and finds that she
herself might be indicted for the very crimes she is trying to solve. Someone
is sabotaging her efforts by hacking into her computer files and leaking
information. Exasperated, she calls upon her niece, Lucy, a 17-year-old
computer whiz, whom readers will remember from earlier "Scarpetta" novels.
Along with FBI agent Benton Wesley and police chum Pete Marino, Lucy helps
Kay solve the murders and ferret out the traitor in her office. |
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