News & Entertainment 

Advertisement

Patricia Cornwell: at the morgue

One of the world's most popular female crime writers talks to iVillage

Patricia Cornwell is the author of the Kay Scarpetta novels, including Black Notice and The Last Precinct. She is also due to release a stand-alone book Portrait of a Killer (about the Jack the Ripper case) in November 2002. She chats about her job in a medical examiner's office, what inspired her phenomenally popular Scarpetta series, her regular visits to the morgue and more...

iVillage: When you invent a murderer or villain in your stories, are they based on real people you've come across in your research?

Patricia Cornwell: Not literally, but I do model the killers after the types of people that I encounter. I've been to many murder trials. The character of Jaime Berger is inspired by Linda Fairstein. She's my good friend and I dedicated the book to her.

iVillage: Do you plan out an entire book ahead, or do you let your characters plot the course of action?

Patricia Cornwell: They are character-driven and research-driven. I do not outline my books; the characters direct the story as I write. They know better than I do.

iVillage: Why did you kill off Benton?

Patricia Cornwell: I didn't plan on killing Benton. Don't worry, the rest of that story is yet to be told. There are many surprises that will come after The Last Precinct.

iVillage: What new things did you learn about yourself when you were looking deeper into Kay's personality for The Last Precinct?

Patricia Cornwell: That was a painful experience. What Kay thinks and feels in this book is all very autobiographical. Kay tells us the story of being accused of cheating in school; this happened to me. I had to take the risk of showing the readers so much about her, and thus telling them about myself. Kay and I went through the same pain.

Medical background

iVillage: What made you centre the main characters around a medical examiner, a cop, and the FBI? Do you interact with any of these types of professionals regularly?

Patricia Cornwell: Yes I do. I worked in a medical examiner's office for six years, and I worked in Quantico with the FBI for a time. I still attend autopsies, too. Half of my staff consists of former police officers.

Delicious     Digg     reddit     Facebook     StumbleUpon

  Get the latest iVillage news on your desktop    Sign up for more iVillage RSS feeds

© iVillage Limited 2000-2008. All rights reserved. | © iVillage inc. 1995-2008. All rights reserved.
iVillage Ltd is a UK company registered in England & Wales (3837269) at 80-110 New Oxford Street, London WC1 1HB