Tuesday, January 10, 2012

May We Suggest...Patricia Cornwell


Patricia Cornwell (born Patricia Carroll Daniels; June 9, 1956) is a contemporary American crime writer. She is widely known for writing a popular series of novels featuring the heroine Dr. Kay Scarpetta, a medical examiner. Cornwell was born in Miami, Florida to Marilyn and Sam Daniels. Her father was one of the leading appellate lawyers in the United States and served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black. Cornwell later traced her own motivations in life to the emotional abuse she says she suffered from her father, who walked out on the family on Christmas Day 1961.

In 1979, Cornwell started working as a reporter for The Charlotte Observer and soon began covering crime. Her biography of family friend Ruth Bell Graham, A Time for Remembering (renamed Ruth, A Portrait: The Story of Ruth Bell Graham in subsequent editions), was published in 1983. In 1984, she took a job at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia. She worked there for six years, first as a technical writer and then as a computer analyst. She also volunteered to work with the Richmond Police Department. Cornwell wrote three novels that she says were rejected before the publication, in 1990, of the first installment of her Scarpetta series, Postmortem.

Cornwell has made several notable charitable donations, including funding the Virginia Institute for Forensic Science and Medicine, funding scholarships to the University of Tennessee's National Forensics Academy and Davidson College's Creative Writing Program (the result of which is the Patricia Cornwell Creative Writing Scholarship, awarded to one or two incoming freshmen), and donating her collection of Walter Sickert paintings to Harvard University. As a member of the Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital's National Council, she is an advocate for psychiatric research. She has also made million-dollar donations to the John Jay College of Criminal Justice for the Crime Scene Academy and to the Harvard Art Museum.

READ-A-LIKES
Kathy Reichs - Forensic scientist Temperance Brennan is based in Montreal, though recently more and more of her stories have unfolded elsewhere. These stories provide similar levels of detail; suspense; a strong cast of supporting characters, including the male-dominated police Tempe must battle to solve crimes; and a strong sense of place in Montreal and the other locations. The plots often focus on serial murderers. Deja Dead is the first.

Linda Fairstein's Alexandra Cooper thrillers are set in New York, where she heads up the sex-crimes unit of the District Attorney's office. A strong sense of place, violent crimes set in suspenseful tales, a tough attorney/investigator and a cast of interesting characters make these strong possibilities for Cornwell's fans. (In fact, Cornwell dedicated Last Precinct to Fairstein, and attorney Jaime Berger appears to have been based on Cooper.) Final Jeopardy is the first in the series