Book Of The Dead: Kay Scarpetta

In 1990, Patricia Cornwell sold her first novel, Postmortem, while working at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia. An auspicious debut, it went on to win the Edgar, Creasey, Anthony, and Macavity Awards, as well as the French Prix du Roman d'Aventures - the first book ever to claim all these distinctions in a single year. Growing into an international phenomenon, the Scarpetta series won Cornwell the Sherlock Award for best detective created by an American author, the Gold Dagger Award, the RBA Thriller Award, and the Medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters for her contributions to literary and artistic development.

Today, Cornwell's novels and iconic characters are known around the world. Beyond the Scarpetta series, Cornwell has written the definitive nonfiction account of Jack the Ripper's identity, cookbooks, a children's book, a biography of Ruth Graham, and three other fictional series based on the characters Win Garano, Andy Brazil, and Captain Callie Chase. Cornwell continues exploring the latest space-age technologies and threats relevant to contemporary life. Her interests range from the morgue to artificial intelligence and include visits to Interpol, the Pentagon, the U.S. Secret Service and NASA.

Cornwell was born in Miami. She grew up in Montreat, North Carolina, and now lives and works in Boston.

aIf Michelin rated mysteries, this would get three stars. "Book of the Dead" by Patricia Cornwell. Charles Dickens would be impressed with both characters in this book and their names, e.g. Dr, Marilyn Self, a malignantly conniving deranged TV psychiatrist. The taleas heroine, Kay Scarpetta, is a private forensic pathologist grappling with the murder of a famous teenage American tennis champ in Rome. At the same time she has to deal with the murder of a malnourished and badly beaten child. Scarpettaas relations with her colleagues, not to mention those with her significant other, are tumultuous and tangled. All these characters have varying levels of unredeeming traits. What a walloping, riveting mix of mystery, adventure and psychology, author Cornell certainly is skilled at dissecting the not always attractive innards of human nature. a a"Forbes Magazine"