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The Conversation
Sue Turnbull, Honorary Professor of Communication and Media Studies, University of Wollongong

Patricia Cornwell survived her parents’ breakdown, psychosis and neglect by creating her own worlds

Patricia Cornwell Patrick Ecclesine/Hachette

In 1976, Patsy Daniels, an English major at Davidson College in North Carolina wrote her first book. An autobiographical novel describing a fraught childhood and adolescence, it was never published. In 1990, Patsy, now identifying as Patricia Daniels Cornwell, wrote a forensic thriller, Postmortem, introducing medical examiner Dr Kay Scarpetta to the reading public – and launching a crime fiction series that she claims made her the highest paid female author of the time.

True Crime is the story of how this came about.

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