Cruel and Unusual, 3 Audio-CDs

Cornwell, Patricia

Patricia Cornwell's first crime novel, Postmortem, was published in 1990 and became the first novel to win all the major crime awards in a single year. In 2008 Cornwell won the Galaxy British Book Awards' Books Direct Crime Thriller of the Year - the first American ever to win this award. In 2011 she was awarded the Medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.

Often interviewed on US national television as a forensic consultant, Cornwell is a founder of the Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine; a founding member of the National Forensic Academy; a member of the Advisory Board for the Forensic Sciences Training Program at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, NYC and a member of the Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital's National Council, where she is an advocate for psychiatric research.

Fox have acquired the film rights to the Scarpetta novels, featuring Angelina Jolie as Dr Kay Scarpetta. Cornwell's books are translated into thirty-six languages across more than fifty countries, and she is regarded as one of the major international bestselling authors.

'The Agatha Christie of the DNA age' EXPRESS 'Perhaps the first entirely credible woman sleuth, Scarpetta is closest to Sherlock Holmes in relying entirely on her brain rather than breaks or brawn to solve baffling cases' INDEPENDENT 'Chillingly detailed forensic thriller, confirming Cornwell as the top gun in this field.' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Highly addictive.' EVENING STANDARD 'Brilliantly orchestrated questions and answers in an ice-cold thriller, with no short cuts taken, no loose ends left ungathered.' LITERARY REVIEW 'Cornwell manages troubled personal relationships... very convincingly, but the chief fascination lies in step-by-step explorations of forensic and electronic wizardry.' SUNDAY TIMES 'America's hottest contemporary crime-writing talent.' DAILY MAIL 'Another top-notch thriller from Cornwell.' IRISH TIMES 'CRUEL AND UNUSUAL won the CWA Gold Dgger Award... this reflects the calibre of the book... A we-plotted book which is difficult to put down.' BOOKS 'Patricia Cornwell achieves a high level of entertainment and intrigue, while sparing her readers no detail of what goes on during the course of an autopsy.' TLS 'A well-plotted book which is difficult to put down.' PUBLISHING NEWS