Table Of Content(49
t h e c o m p l e t e
P at r i c i a
Cornwell
C o m p a n i o n
(49
G l e n n L . F e o l e , M . D . ,
and D o n L a s s e t e r
BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK
b
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
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This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
Copyright © 2005 by Cornwell Enterprises, Inc.
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Portions of “The Life of Patricia Cornwell” were written by Birger Nielson and have previously
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DEDICATION
To my wife, Tina, and my four children, Kelly, Ben, John, and Molly,
who watched with patient incredulity as I sat and wrote for one year.
We have shared years and years of stories and anecdotes and reading
together, and I hope I have passed on my love of reading to you. All
my love.
—glenn l. feole, m.d.
NOTE TO THE READERS
Source citations are provided throughout for referenced and quoted
text sections. The cites for the quotes culled from Patricia Cornwell
books have been taken from the paperback editions. The exceptions
are Trace and Blow Fly—some of the pages referenced for these two
titles have been taken from the hardcover editions.
As you read through certain sections of this book there may be
timeline and incidental inconsistencies between the series books. In
the end, for all the exacting specificity poured into the details, these
Patricia Cornwell books we love are fiction and ultimately individual.
CONTENTS
Foreword
ix
Introduction
xii
PART ONE: THE AUTHOR
THE LIFE OF PATRICIA CORNWELL
3
PATRICIA CORNWELL: PROSE STYLIST
6
PATRICIA CORNWELL’S WORKS:A BIBLIOGRAPHY
14
Part Two: The main Characters
KAY SCARPETTA, MASTER SLEUTH
35
PETE MARINO, DISGRUNTLED DETECTIVE
45
LUCY FARINELLI, HIGH-TECH INVESTIGATOR
51
THE ANDY BRAZIL SERIES:A CHANGE OF PACE
53
RELATIONSHIPS
63
PART THREE: A DOSE OF REALITY
SHOP TALK:THE LANGUAGE OF THE MEDICAL EXAMINER
79
FORENSICS, FIREARMS,AND FINGERPRINTS
104
THAT’S A REAL KILLER
117
TIMELINES: CHRONOLOGIES OF THE CORNWELL NOVELS
137
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
157
DISASTERS AND TRAGEDIES
184
CELEBRITIES
188
FINE THINGS
206
COP CODES:TEN-CODES COMMONLY USED
BY PUBLIC SAFETY OFFICERS
212
PATRICIA CORNWELL AND JACK THE RIPPER
216
Part Four: final inventory
PEOPLE
225
PLACES
272
GENERAL CONCORDANCE
297
DEATH BY THE NUMBERS:A STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
OF DEATH IN THE CORNWELL BOOKS
325
Acknowledgments
335
Index
338
viii
contents
FOREWORD
S
everal years ago, as I stood in my driveway, ready to leave my
anachronistic solo pediatric practice in Westport, Connecticut, one
of my patients ran up to me to say goodbye. She had heard that I was
moving to Richmond and, clutching a large book in her hand, she told
me, “Richmond. That’s where my favorite author is. I’ve read all her
books.” She held up a book with a large color picture on the back. The
photo featured an attractive, female helicopter pilot with short dirty-blond
hair, a hint of a smile, and a leather bomber jacket. Given the photo’s po-
sition, it had to be the author of the book: Patricia Cornwell. And, with
that last name, she was probably a descendant of British royalty. What, I
wondered, was a possible descendant of British royalty doing in Richmond,
Virginia, flying helicopters and writing novels? Little did I know that I
would find out for myself soon enough.
After wandering around in the Piedmont for two years, writing a book
and pretending not to be a doctor, I called the medical examiner’s office
and asked if they just happened to need a doctor to be a medical exam-
iner. My aim was to keep the medical wheels in my brain from rusting
while my writing career careened wildly down, or up, the hill of success.
The person on the phone told me that they did in fact need such a doc-
tor. So I drove downtown and met with Dr. Marcella Fierro, the chief
medical examiner. The experience was like walking into the den of Nero
Wolfe, or even into Sherlock Holmes’s office on Baker Street. I sat there,
like a sponge, and could feel my writer’s instincts stir inside of me. It was
the beginning, in many ways, of a new era in my life.
For a year, I quietly observed Marcella’s incisive judgments, her pen-
sive premonitions, her forceful charisma as she responded to my forensic
observations from the many scenes of carnage that I visited. I soaked it all
up. I even learned something despite myself. She patiently kept remind-
ing me, like a mantra, that it’s often a bad world out there.
In the course of that year, she also told me that she had a writer
friend, a woman who just happened to be a helicopter pilot and perhaps
of British royal descent, at least through marriage. And that’s how I met
Patricia Cornwell.
Patricia Cornwell sauntered down the hall of the M.E.’s office one
day and the pieces fell into place in my mind—she was the writer on the
back of the book my patient had shown me. But I had no idea what a
celebrity I was meeting until I picked up a couple of books at one of Pa-
tricia’s signings at a local bookstore in downtown Richmond. Instead of
buying the books and leaving them at the Office of the Chief Medical
Examiner (OCME) to be signed, which she happily does for the staff there,
I drove over to the store instead.
I was on call that weekend as an M.E. and deluged with calls from the
police. But I thought I’d just stop in at the store, get a quick signature
from the author, and return to my calls. Imagine my shock when I got
there. It was two hours before her scheduled appearance and already a
thick line of people wound in and out of almost every aisle. The line
then wound around the entire periphery of the store, out the back door,
down the long sidewalk, and around the entire building to the other side
where I had just entered. When Patricia Cornwell showed up, she had a
smile and a pleasant word for each of her devoted fans. She made eye
contact with each as she signed their books. I was impressed. This was a
woman with a following. I dropped my books off at the counter to be
signed later, when she was finished with the line of fans. That would take
a while. I figured, given the size of the crowd, that my books might get
signed by midnight.
x
foreword
I took away from that day a sense of how many readers Patricia Corn-
well has touched. I became one of them myself, with an ever-growing
addiction to her work that has resulted in this book. I hope you enjoy it.
Dr. Glenn L. Feole
2003
foreword
xi
A
s the author of a dozen nonfiction works depicting the horrors
of real-life crime and the resolute efforts of law enforcement in-
vestigators, I was invited to examine fictional sleuthing in the
novels of Patricia Cornwell from a distinctly nonfiction point of view. I
launched into the project by reading her first Kay Scarpetta novel, Post-
mortem.
Like her legions of other fans, I was hooked.
What appeared to be a formidable task, reading twenty books by one
author, turned out to be the most welcome research project of my career.
Within just a few weeks, I journeyed delightfully through Cornwell’s
Scarpetta novels (eleven at the time, thirteen by the time this book was fin-
ished), three other crime novels, one biography, one nonfiction account
of the case of Jack the Ripper, two cookbooks, and one novelette for chil-
dren. Her protagonists and supporting casts became my familiar friends. I
felt as if I had spent a great deal of time in Virginia, and intimately knew
where these characters lived, worked, and died.
It soon became clear to me why bookstores are loaded with this au-
thor’s novels, and why her admirers stand in lines for signed books and
the chance to meet her. Cornwell occupies an unparalleled niche in the
INTRODUCTION
pantheon of accomplished writers. It is a privilege to contribute to a
companion book for her inspired body of work.
One of the fundamental reasons for a companion book is to cast ad-
ditional light on any esoteric terms and passages presented by an author.
Patricia Cornwell’s books, both novels and nonfiction, are perfect for this
kind of detailed analysis. Her multilayered plots, enriched by technical
idiom and numerous references to real people, locations, and historical
events, add up to interesting complexity. Cornwell has clearly done her
homework as reflected by her impressive knowledge of scientific and cul-
tural subjects. The author pays tribute to her readers’ intelligence by in-
serting varied material into her stories, including medical terms, ballistics,
and legal quandries. She uses diverse scientific terminology. Cornwell places
her characters in real cities, neighborhoods, restaurants, buildings, parks,
and other sites. She imagines them not only with other fictional figures,
but also with scores of bona fide people. The names of notorious real-life
murderers are often mentioned.
This literary technique, intertwining real people with invented ones,
and actual locations with imaginary ones, holds special appeal to me. It blurs
the lines between fact and fiction, lending authenticity to both. Cornwell
accomplishes this masterfully.
In reading the Scarpetta novels, it helped me considerably to take them
in consecutive order. I strongly recommend that new readers do the same.
This applies equally to the author’s other novels.
I hope that I have managed not only to provide her faithful worldwide
readers and fans with supplementary information, but have also given
them a new understanding of the author’s profound knowledge, research
skills, and ability to tell richly layered stories loaded with authenticity.
Vladimir Nabokov wrote, “For me a work of fiction exists only in-
sofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss.”
Patricia Cornwell knows how to present “aesthetic bliss.”
Don Lasseter
2003
introduction
xiii
