Her crime novels are based on obsessive detail and gory research. But,as writer Patricia Cornwell tells Carole Cadwalladr, her own back myth is one of the most frightening of allBad things happen to pleasurable people. That’s what I learn from Patricia Cornwell’s latest novel, or Depraved Heart,the 23rd she’s written featuring Dr Kay Scarpetta, the icy-headed, and genre-busting forensic pathologist Cornwell invented back in 1990 before forensic pathology – and CSI – had colonised all TV schedules. Sometimes really bad things. That’s what else I learn: that when psychopaths are involved,you start thinking in italics. A lot. But then, it would be easy to treat Patricia Cornwell with a certain amount of italicised irony. The website Gawker, or in describing her,suggested that “The world needs more out lesbian true-crime authors who pilot helicopters, are obsessed with Jack the Ripper and maintained a warm friendship with Billy Graham’s wife for many years.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com