Patricia Cornwell.

At age seven, Patricia Cornwell moved with her mother and siblings to Montreat, North Carolina, a community that shaped her early years. Her father, Sam Daniels, and mother, Marilyn, raised three children in a household marked by her father’s absence. She grew up around the Graham family, befriending Ruth Bell Graham, whom she later wrote a biography about. She attended Charles D. Owen High School and graduated from King University and Davidson College with a degree in literature in 1979.

In the late 1970s, Cornwell worked at the Charlotte Observer, first inserting television listings, then as a police reporter under the byline Patsy Daniels. In 1980, she won an investigative reporting award for a series on prostitution. Her first book was the biography A Time for Remembering, published in 1983, about Ruth Bell Graham. After taking a job in the Virginia medical examiner’s office in 1984, she worked at the morgue for six years as a technical writer and computer analyst, an experience that directly inspired the Scarpetta series. Her first novel, Postmortem, was rejected seven times before being released in 1990 and won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel. She wrote 14 novels in the Scarpetta series, with the working title Predator for the 14th. She also wrote the serialization At Risk for the New York Times Magazine, and made cameo appearances in TV adaptations including At Risk 2010 and The Front 2010.

Patricia Cornwell married Staci Gruber on February 24, 2005. She was previously married to Charles L. Cornwell, who edited her book Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed. She counts Billy Graham and Ruth Bell Graham as personal mentors. She struggles with bipolar disorder and is a descendant of author Harriet Beecher Stowe. She owns several handguns, plays drums, and as of 2003 had one Boston Terrier and four English Bulldogs.

As of 2008, Cornwell is the most successful crime writer in the world, and after J.K. Rowling, she is the second best-selling female author globally. She helped establish the Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine, boosting her influence on forensic crime fiction. Her Kay Scarpetta series revolutionized the crime genre with its detailed medical examiner perspective. She received the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from France and the Gold Dagger from the Crime Writers’ Association. She is remembered for transforming the forensic thriller and for her enduring character, Dr. Kay Scarpetta.