Background
Her father was one of the leading appellate lawyers in the United States and served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black.
Her father was one of the leading appellate lawyers in the United States and served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black.
Patricia Cornwell has sold over 100 million books. She sold her first novel, Postmortem, while working as a computer analyst at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia. Postmortem, was the first bona fide forensic thriller. It paved the way for an explosion of entertainment featuring in all things forensic across film, television and literature.
Since 1998, Cornwell has donated at least $130,000 to the Republican Party, and has made additional individual contributions to Republican U.S. Senate candidates, including George Allen, John Warner, and Orrin Hatch. She has occasionally supported specific Democratic candidates as well, including Hillary Clinton, Nicola Tsongas, Charles Robb, and Mark Warner
Cornwell, a licensed helicopter pilot and scuba diver, actively researches the cutting-edge forensic technologies that inform her work.
She is married.