Patricia Cornwell, the award-winning former crime reporter for the "Charlotte Observer, " spent six years working for the Virginia Chief Medical Examiner's Office and as a volunteer police officer before she wrote her first Dr. Kay Scarpetta novel, "Postmortem." The work received outstanding international acclaim and made Cornwell the only author to win five major first-novel mystery awards in a single year on both sides of the Atlantic. Eleven subsequent Scarpetta novels became international bestsellers, together with "Food to Die For" and "Scarpetta's Winter Table." Cornwell is also the author of three police procedural novels as well as "A Time for Remembering, " a biography of Ruth Graham, wife of the evangelist; "Portrait of a Serial Killer: Jack the Ripper -- Case Closed;" and "Life's Little Fable, " a book for children. She lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, and New York City, and she supports several institutions that are concerned with forensic research, victims' rights, and animal rescue. Visit the author's website at www.patriciacornwell.com.