Fun Facts Friday: Patricia Cronwell

Tomorrow, 9 June, is the birthday of crime author Patricia Cornwell (website | Facebook). Ms. Cornwell, a Miami, Florida native, created the well known medical examiner Kay Scrapetta.

Books by Patricia Cronwell

1 ) When Cornwell was nine years old her mother had a nervous breakdown and tried to give her kids to Ruth & Billy Graham – the famed evangelist.

2 ) To the Grahams’ credit, they placed the kids in foster care and kept an eye on them throughout the years (now really, doesn’t that make you feel good?).

3 ) One of Cronwell’s first jobs was a newspaper reporter in Charlotte, NC. She wrote a profile of Ruth Graham which became her first book – a biography and was the first of several non-fiction book written by Cronwell.

4 ) Cronwell’s husband is 17 years older than her and became a minister after they were married. The couple moved to Richmond, VA which is where the Scrapetta novels are based in.
Unfortunately the marriage ended in a divorce.

5 ) Cronwell spent six years working at a morgue and studying forensics, all in the hopes of becoming an author.
That’s dedication.

6 ) Patricia Cronwell wrote three novels starring charming detective hero between 1984 and 1988. The novels featured a minor character – medical examiner Kay Scrapetta.

7 ) It was Conwell’s editor who suggested that she should make Scrapetta the main character and make her fiction gritty, pulled from the headlines type of book.

8 ) The first novel starring Scrapetta was Postmortem. The novel was passed on by seven publishers before being picked up by Scribner’s.

9 ) Postmortem won five awards that year and sold hundreds of thousands of copies when coming out in paperback.

10) The Scrapetta novels have been translated into 22 languages.

Books by Patricia Cronwell

Zohar – Man of la Book