Patricia Cornwell

Patricia Cornwell, born Patricia Carroll Daniels in Miami in 1956, is an American crime writer. She is best known for her bestselling series featuring Kay Scarpetta, a medical examiner whose cases highlight forensic science and have reached readers around the world.

Her childhood was unsettled. Her father, a prominent appellate lawyer, walked out of the family home on Christmas Day in 1961, and the family soon moved to North Carolina, where her mother was hospitalized with severe depression and the children were placed in the care of others. Ruth Bell Graham, wife of the evangelist Billy Graham, encouraged her to write. She graduated in English from Davidson College in 1979.

Her first career was in journalism. She worked at The Charlotte Observer, eventually covering crime, and later at the Virginia state medical examiner's office, where she saw the daily work of forensic medicine up close. That experience shaped the Scarpetta books. Before her breakthrough she wrote a biography of Ruth Bell Graham, published in 1983, which left her estranged from the Graham family for years.

Her 1990 debut, Postmortem, was a major success and won several awards, including the Edgar for Best First Novel. The series pairs police investigation with detailed forensic procedure, and it is often cited as an influence on later crime shows on television. Cornwell has since expanded her work with other series, nonfiction and controversy, most notably her claim that the painter Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper, a theory most Ripper specialists reject.

Her legacy lies largely in bringing forensic science to general readers and in the lasting place of Scarpetta in contemporary crime fiction. Cornwell has also spoken publicly about her sexuality and about the importance of defending equal rights.