Patricia Cornwell grew up in Montreat, North Carolina, and graduated from Davidson College in 1979. She immediately began writing for the Charlotte Observer, advancing to the coveted police beat in record time. For her series on prostitution and crime in downtown Charlotte she won an investigative reporting award from the North Carolina Press Association. From 1984 to 1990 she worked as a technical writer and computer analyst at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia.

In 1990, Scribner’s published Postmortem, her first crime novel. The book that had been rejected by seven major publishing houses became the first novel to win the Edgar, Creasey, Anthony, and Macavity awards as well as the French Prix du Roman d’Aventure in a single year.

Cornwell has written thirty one books, twenty one of which make up the bestselling Scarpetta Series, featuring Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the brilliant forensic sleuth who won the Sherlock Award for best detective created by an American author in 1999.

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