Patricia Cornwell Books – Patricia Cornwell Free Audiobook

Written by Patricia Cornwell
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Scarpetta series

The Scarpetta novels include a great deal of detail on forensic science. The initial resolution to the mystery is found in the forensic investigation of the murder victim’s corpse, although Scarpetta does considerably more field investigation and confrontation with suspects than real-life medical examiners. The novels generally climax with action scenes in which Scarpetta and her associates confront, or are confronted by, the killer or killers, usually concluding with the death of the killer. The novels are considered to have influenced the development of popular TV series on forensics, both fictional, such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and documentaries, such as Cold Case Files.[citation needed]

Other significant themes in the Scarpetta novels include health, individual safety and security, food, family, and the emerging sexual self-discovery of Scarpetta’s niece. Often, conflicts and secret manipulations by Scarpetta’s colleagues and staff are involved in the storyline and make the murder cases more complex. Although scenes from the novels take place in a variety of locations around the U.S. and (less commonly) internationally, they center around the city of Richmond, Virginia.

There are two remarkable style shifts in the Scarpetta novels. Starting from The Last Precinct (2000), the style changes from past tense to present tense. Starting from Blow Fly (2003), the style changes from a first person to a third person, omniscient, narrator. Events are even narrated from the viewpoint of the murderers. Before Blow Fly the events are seen through Scarpetta’s eyes only, and other points of view only appear in letters that Scarpetta reads.

Cornwell shifted back to a first-person perspective in the Scarpetta novel Port Morturary (2010).

Andy Brazil/Judy Hammer series

In addition to the Scarpetta novels, Cornwell has written three pseudo-police fictions, known as the Trooper Andy Brazil/Superintendent Judy Hammer series, which are set in North Carolina, Virginia and off the mid-Atlantic coast. Besides the older woman/younger man premise, the books include discomforting themes of scatology and sepsis.

Jack the Ripper

Cornwell has been involved in a continuing, self-financed search for evidence to support her theory that painter Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper. She wrote Portrait of a Killer—Jack the Ripper: Case Closed, which was published in 2002 to much controversy, especially within the British art world and among Ripperologists.[3][4][5] Cornwell denied being obsessed with Jack the Ripper in full-page ads in two British newspapers and has said the case was “far from closed”.[6][7] In 2001, Cornwell was criticized for allegedly destroying one of Sickert’s paintings in pursuit of the Ripper’s identity.[8] She believed the well-known painter to be responsible for the string of murders and had purchased over thirty of his paintings and argued that they closely resembled the Ripper crime scenes.[8] Cornwell also claimed a breakthrough: a letter written by someone purporting to be the killer, had the same watermark as some of Sickert’s writing paper.[8] Ripper experts noted, however, that there were hundreds of letters from different authors falsely claiming to be the killer, and the watermark in question was on a brand of stationery that was widely available.[9]

Kay Scarpetta Series:

1. Postmortem (1990)
2. Body of Evidence (1991)
3. All That Remains (1992)
4. Cruel and Unusual (1993)
5. The Body Farm (1994)
6. From Potter’s Field (1995)
7. Cause of Death (1996)
8. Unnatural Exposure (1996)
9. Point of Origin (1998)
10. Black Notice (1999)
11. The Last Precinct (2000)
12. Blow Fly (2003)
13. Trace (2004)
14. Predator (2005)
15. Book of the Dead (2007)
16. Scarpetta (2008)
17. The Scarpetta Factor (2009)
18. Port Mortuary (2010)
19. Red Mist (2011)

Portrait of a Killer Jack the Ripper – Case Closed 2002

Andy Brazil Series:

1. Hornet’s Nest (1997)
2. Southern Cross (1999)
3. Isle Of Dogs (2001)

Winston Garano Series:

1. At Risk (2006)
2. The Front (2008)