It’s not easy to rank Patricia Cornwell, an author who has topped the list of best-selling books in the United States for 35 years. “Postmortem”published in 1990, was a success which launched his literary career, with more than 30 novels … since then.
One of the most representative is “Chaos”, number 24 of the series featuring Kay Scarpetta, her alter ego, as she confessed. Scarpetta is a coroner who practices her profession in Cambridge, near Boston, from where she investigates the crimes of psychopaths and serial killers. Cornwell started working in 1984, when he was 28 years old, in the department of legal chief of Virginia, where he remained six years. There he becomes familiar with the techniques with which he constructs his deliveries.
Cornwell is now the queen of “psychothriller”a genre that mixes detective fiction, horror, psychopathy and suspense. His works always present two characteristics that refer to a personal stamp: technology as a criminal instrument and field of pathologycrucial in their plots. With all these ingredients, he constructs a work that seduces the reader with the dramatic intensity of his stories, always “crescendoing” towards an ending that does not disappoint.
“Chaos”, published in 2016, begins on a summer afternoon in Cambridge, when Scarpetta receives a mysterious call which reveals that a young cyclist of Dutch origin has died in a central park, apparently attacked by a brutal force.
Before the police have news of the event, Agent Marino and Benton Wesley, Scarpetta’s husband and an FBI agent, receive purported calls from Interpol in which they are interested in the crime. They soon discover that these calls could come from a hacker operating under the name Tailend Charlie, who has been sending a series of cryptic messages to Scarpetta for several weeks. And, a few hours later, the body of General Briggs, White House advisor and expert in racketeering. He was murdered with the same method as the young woman in the park.
He manages to create a closed and oppressive atmosphere in the novel, in which the threat of catastrophe hangs.
The FBI takes the reins of the investigation, suspecting that this may be the start of a wave of terrorismwhile Scarpetta and Benton point to Carrie Grethen as the perpetrator or instigator, a psychopathic criminal who escaped from prison and wants revenge on the doctor. The novel unfolds as the forensic analysis of the deceased young woman progresses, revealing that she was struck by a deadly weapon, equipped with very sophisticated technology, which leaves no trace.
It is perhaps not Cornwell’s best work, but it is one of the most representative because it brings together all the characters of his work and because it manages to create a closed and oppressive environment, in which the threat of catastrophe skims its pages. And also because it reveals the dangers of new technologies in the hands of criminals or unscrupulous organizations who can take advantage of these means to cause large-scale harm.
Cornwell is one of those late vocations who found in literature the instrument to express their personal frustrations. Her father was an influential Florida lawyer who abandoned his family when she was five. Her mother was hospitalized for chronic depression and Patricia went to live in a public center for juveniles. As she said, her adolescence was hell anorexia and dangerous addictions. His first book was a biography of Ruth Bell, philanthropist, writer and painter.
Patricia Cornwell married Charles Cornwell, one of her teachers, in 1980, a marriage that lasted nine years and explains the author’s last name. They both divorced in 1989, when Patricia had a sentimental adventure with Margueritte Bennett, an FBI agent. The affair came to light following a lawsuit filed by Margueritte’s husband. In 2005, Patricia married Staci Gruber, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard.
forensic techniques
On several occasions, the author of “Caos” expressed his identification with Scarpetta, a doctor whose personality baffles men and who shines in a career where there were practically no women. She is a virtuoso of forensic techniques and a great connoisseur of human psychewhich forces Interpol and the FBI to use their services, almost always to follow the trail of serial crimes.
Cornwell writes in a direct style, with lots of dialogue and a suspenseful plot in which Scarpetta must demonstrate her investigative skills. His novels are entertaining, well-crafted and always well-researched. His work has received prestigious awards such as the Edgar and has been translated into 36 languages, which explains the loyalty of his many readers.
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