SOURCE: Cantwell, Mary. “How to Make a Corpse Talk.” New York Times Magazine (14 July 1996): 15–17.

In the following essay, Cantwell explores Cornwell's success with the Kay Scarpetta series and Cornwell's introduction of a new heroine, Judy Hammer, in Hornet's Nest.

Judging by her jacket photograph, Patricia Cornwell is the spitting image of her lead character, the one who has just got her a ＄24 million advance on three crime novels and made her a bundle on the previous seven, the most recent of which, Cause of Death, was published this month. But Patricia Cornwell doesn't really resemble Dr. Kay Scarpetta, chief medical examiner of Virginia. Her hair, possibly lightened for the pictures, isn't blond and her eyes appear a less-vivid blue. Still, she has walked Kay Scarpetta's walk, talked Kay Scarpetta's talk, and if she has not been the target of a serial killer, as Kay Scarpetta was in her...