Prolific thriller author Patricia Cornwell’s latest release, out today from William Morrow & Company, is the up-to-the-minute Autopsy, the 25th installment in the Scarpetta series, which began in 1990 with Postmortem. This relaunch of the series, following 2016’s Chaos, offered Cornwell a new research frontier—NASA, with a plotline finding forensic pathologist Dr. Kay Scarpetta back in Virginia as chief medical examiner and living near the Pentagon “in a post-pandemic world that’s been torn by civil and political unrest.” Scarpetta has to remotely investigate a potential crime in outer space along with another murder in a novel that takes her into the White House Situation Room and beyond as she tracks down a killer.
Via email, I interviewed Cornwell, who’s also the author of the Captain Chase, Win Garano and Andy Brazil series, about reviving the Scarpetta series, which she’d intended to end with Chaos, the series’ popularity, her research for Autopsy with NASA, working with Jamie Lee Curtis on the TV adaptation of the series, and how the landscape for female leads in mysteries has changed since she began writing.
How do you keep yourself interested in writing the series after so many years and titles? What motivates you to continue with it?
I constantly go out and explore something new. I try to see things for myself, I have new experiences and that gives me new ideas and thoughts and most of all new things to feel.
Why do you think the series has been so popular with readers? What did you expect from the series when you started writing it?
I think the series has been popular because it’s authentic. I go out and like a journalist, I discover something, I learn something. I see something that your average person is not familiar with, whether it’s what the White House is like inside or what it’s like to go up in a rocket and I write it up authentically so that I can take people on the journey. I never set out to write a series—it just sort of became one. It’s important for people to know that with Autopsy you don't have to read any of the other ones to read this one.
What can longtime readers expect from this latest Kay Scarpetta installment?
Readers are going to really have fun with Autopsy because they can expect everything they ever loved about the series from the very beginning—the characters, their relationships, Scarpetta in the kitchen, the small town feel of scary crime, but also, they’re going to get the new world that she inhabits today—which is the world of COVID and the Doomsday Commission that she’s a member of and crimes that can occur in in outer space.
How did you get the idea for Autopsy?
I got the idea for Autopsy when COVID had everything shut down. I had written and published the two Captain Chase books—space thrillers—and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do next. I had never lived through anything like this plague, and I started wondering what Scarpetta would be thinking about the world we’re in right now and how she would navigate it, what she might do, then suddenly I found myself trying to write a story about that.
You did research with NASA for Autopsy. Can you share a little about what that experience was like for you?
The experience with NASA and other technologies connected to that—exploring the worlds beyond this one—has been the most amazing thing, in many ways, that I’ve ever done. It’s opened my mind to so many possibilities, not just creatively, but even as a human being. Asking the fundamental and important questions about, who are we, and why we’re here and what are we supposed to do.
How far in advance do you plan each book? Do you have a vision for the future of the series, or do you work on one book at a time?
I work on one book at a time and generally as I get near the end of that book as happened in Autopsy, I suddenly start realizing something that she’s going to be doing next and one will sort of lead to the other. I don’t really plan them in advance, I just follow it, just like I follow life.
How has the landscape changed for female leads in mystery series since you started writing the series in 1990?
Well, I think the landscape has changed dramatically. It’s gone from one extreme to the other. Particularly for your more hardboiled-type mysteries. It’s gone from almost all male to having plenty of female protagonists these days. I think that’s true of life. When I was getting started doing research, you would run into very few female medical examiners or forensic scientists—now there are probably more females going into those professions than men.
The Kay Scarpetta series is being adapted for a TV series by Jamie Lee Curtis and Blumhouse Television. Why did you want to work with her?
I’ve known Jamie for a number of years and she’s familiar with Scarpetta. She’s not only just an amazing creative but she’s also just a remarkable person. When she says something, she does it. She works like crazy, there’s nothing lazy or entitled about her. She knows how to tell a story and she understands the business and what it would take to make something like this work as a TV series. I really believe that it will work this time and I couldn’t be luckier. I’m so grateful to be working with her.
How involved will you be in the show, and is there anything you can share about what viewers can expect?
I’ll be as involved in the show as is needed. If I can help in any way, I will facilitate but I also know to stay out of the way when necessary. I think what people can expect is that we’re going to create something that’s very powerful and unusual. I have a feeling it won’t be quite what you might expect but I think it might lift above all that and be something that’s really imaginative and big.
For a long-running series like this with its 25th installment, do you recommend new readers start at the beginning, or can they pick up Autopsy and follow the story?
You can absolutely start with Autopsy, you don’t have to read any of the other books—at all. It makes it more interesting, maybe, if you’ve have read the others, but frankly, I don’t think it’s necessary. In some ways I’d say if you've never read a Scarpetta, I would definitely start with Autopsy. It puts you right in the story—introduces readers to all the main characters and what Scarpetta does and why it matters. Then, if you want to go back and read the earlier stories, you can but be prepared that this is a relaunch of the series and there are elements of this one that are not in the earlier books. I would recommend Autopsy first. To me, other than Postmortem, I believe it’s the strongest one I've ever done and it might even be better than Postmortem.
What are you working on next?
Well, Scarpetta is up to more trouble and I'm working on the next one. So far, I can tell you that it’s going to be quite a ride.
Follow me on Twitter. Check out my website.