She once worked in a coroner's office. It is Cornwell's knowledge of forensics and her ability to satisfy a "forensic literate" public that make Kay Scarpetta so hot.
My thirst for solving mysteries started at an early age and it didn’t take me long to graduate from Enid Blyton’s Famous Five to murder mystery novels.
My mother was a crime novel devotee, so we’d go to the library together each week. I started with Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen and picked up the tricks of the trade as an armchair forensic criminologist.
Patricia Cornwell introduces Dr Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner
When Patricia Cornwell’s Dr Kay Scarpetta exploded onto the scene in 1990 with Postmortem, I became a devoted follower of this Chief Medical Examiner. Murder Mystery novels had reached a new height.
Although Patricia Cornwell has written other books, including a biography of Billy Graham’s wife, none compare to her well researched Kay Scarpetta books which are packed with forensic evidence and new forensic technology, which certainly contribute to the CSI effect, but make for white-knuckle reading.
1 March 1996, six of Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta books were on the USA Today list of the 25 most best-selling mystery books to date. The latest Scarpetta novel, Book of the Dead, appeared in 2007.
What is so fascinating about Kay Scarpetta?
I’ve tried to figure out what it is about Kay Scarpetta that is so fascinating, besides the fast paced, well written plot lines and the familiar characters of Lucy, her niece; Pete Marino, the cop side-kick and Benton Wesley, her FBI Profiler /lover.
Forensic evidence, forensic technology, forensic everything – that is the key to Kay Scarpetta. Somehow Cornwell knows absolutely how to present really gory and technical details in a way that is interesting and exciting.
To satisfy a reading public that is already pretty “forensic literate”, Patricia Cornwell always manages to come up with something new, and that is what we all wait for in the next Kay Scarpetta book.
