STAR INTERVIEW

As the latest Kay Scarpetta novel is published, Patricia Cornwell, queen of forensic crime writing, talks to Tina Jackson about dead bodies, extreme research, and the possibilities of other life-forms

What keeps an author at the top of their game? In the case of Patricia Cornwell, one of contemporary crime-writing’s most legendary figures, the answer is apparent as soon as she turns up on Zoom. It’s being fascinated by your subject and bringing that excitement to what you’re writing. A shonky transatlantic connection with time-lapses and occasional voice distortion does nothing to dilute Patricia’s enthusiastic whoosh of energy as she talks about the new Kay Scarpetta novel, Identity Unknown.

From the off, she launches into what keeps her motivated.

‘I will tell you the real trick – there was the Scottish writer, called George MacDonald, and he talked about the importance of walking into the shadow – doing things that make you insecure, doing things that may frighten you if there’s a point to it. It’s my method – I do things so that readers can go there with you.’

Since 1990, when Patricia, then working in the office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia, sold the first Kay Scarpetta novel, Postmortem, that’s exactly what she’s done – delving into the grisly and the unknown, using forensic postmortem technology in the service of solving fictional crime.

In the case of Identity Unknown, the 28th Scarpetta novel, the clue to where Patricia is going is in the title – alien life forms. The twisty, turny story sees medical examiner Kay Scarpetta drawn into an investigation of the bizarre death of a former lover – a research scientist. One theory is that he’s been dropped from an unidentified flying craft.

Although Identity Unknown tracks Kay Scarpetta’s determination to find a logical explanation for the murder, it was Patricia’s own fascination with the possibilities that there may be other life forms than our own that drew her into writing the book.