Patricia Cornwell was born in Florida and raised in North Carolina. She sold her first novel, Postmortem, while working as a computer analyst at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia. Postmortem was her first bona fide forensic thriller, and it would go on to win the Edgar, Creasey, Anthony and Macavity awards as well as the French Prix du roman d'aventures. Since then, she's authored twenty-nine New York Times bestsellers and won the Sherlock Award, the Gold Dagger Award, the RBA Thriller Award and the Medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters for her contributions to literary and artistic development.

To date, Cornwell's books have sold over 100 million copies in 36 languages in over 120 countries. She now lives in Boston, where she tirelessly researches advanced forensic techniques to include in her work.