What Nobody Tells You About the Morgue (with Patricia Cornwell)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Criminal — "What Nobody Tells You About the Morgue"

Host: Phoebe Judge
Guest: Patricia Cornwell
Date: June 30, 2026

---

Episode Overview

In this special episode of Criminal, host Phoebe Judge has a candid conversation with bestselling crime novelist Patricia Cornwell, renowned for her Kay Scarpetta series. Cornwell discusses the realities of working in medical examiners' offices, her path from journalism to forensic fiction, and how first-hand morgue experiences shaped her writing. The episode is a rich blend of memoir, science, inspiration, and practical advice, providing a rare, “backstage” look at both true crime investigation and the evolution of crime writing.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Photo on the Cover: Behind the Scenes

• [02:13] Cornwell recounts a 1997 Annie Leibovitz shoot at the Richmond Medical Examiner’s office, sharing an amusing story about her mentor, Dr. Marcella Fierro, interrupting the famed photographer with her point-and-shoot camera.
  • Quote: “Every time Annie Leibovitz, the great Annie Leibovitz, is trying to take one of her pictures, Marcella's going snap. And the little flash cube is going off.” (Patricia Cornwell, 02:13)

Entering the Morgue: Not What She Planned

• [03:27] Cornwell never intended to work in a morgue or become a crime writer. Her start was in journalism, where covering the police beat sparked her curiosity about what happened to bodies after crime scenes.
• [04:30] Her persistent research led her to the Richmond Medical Examiner’s office, where she volunteered as a police officer just to gain access.
  • Quote: “So I did.” (Patricia Cornwell, 04:33)

The Reality of Autopsy Rooms

• [06:00] Cornwell describes the overwhelming sensory and emotional impact of being around multiple dead bodies.
  • Quote: “It's almost as if you felt like the dead were trying to suck the life out of you, because they're there. And then here's these living people are coming in and tending to them.” (Patricia Cornwell, 06:10)
  • She explains that emotional shields are necessary: you can't break down, because "these are patients who need to be taken care of."
  • The work is about more than justice—it's essential for families, legal reasons, and closure.

Reflections on Death & Consciousness

• [10:07] Judge and Cornwell discuss recent science on what happens immediately after death, referencing Sebastian Junger’s book.
• [11:07] Cornwell offers a surprisingly hopeful view of mortality shaped by her experiences.
  • Quote: “I do not believe it’s the end of you. And even if I weren’t a religious person, a spiritual person, I would still believe that after what I’ve seen.” (Patricia Cornwell, 11:49)

Creating Kay Scarpetta: From Real Life to Fiction

• [12:08] Scarpetta, Cornwell’s iconic forensic pathologist, became the main character only after repeated publication rejections and a publisher’s nudge.
  • Quote: “An editor who had rejected three of my books suggested I make Scarpetta the main character because she was a minor character in my earlier ones. And the person told me, that is your best character. That's who I want to hear about.” (Patricia Cornwell, 12:15)

Experiential Research: Doing to Understand

• [15:56] Both Judge and Cornwell value experiencing their subjects ("jumping in the deep end")—whether that means flying helicopters, scuba diving, or visiting body farms.
  • Quote: “If you don’t experience something, if you have a reason to want to experience something, then you should do it as long as it’s appropriate…There’s no substitute for showing up.” (Patricia Cornwell, 19:49)
• [18:33] Practical advice: never use Vicks or petroleum jelly in your nose at a body farm or autopsy. The smell molecules stick to it, making odors linger.

Craving Adventure and Inspiration

• [20:23] Cornwell expresses envy of Agatha Christie's globe-trotting and adventure. She reflects on the tighter boundaries of the modern world, but her curiosity persists.
• [21:18] Judge and Cornwell reminisce about police scanners and how hearing unfiltered crime in real time de-romanticized the world and shattered naive views.

Writing and Literary Influence

• [24:05] Cornwell’s writing career was partly inspired by a vivid dream of Agatha Christie, who told her, “You will take my place.”
  • Quote: “But it was like something said, don’t give up. Don’t give up. You’re going to do better than you think. Just hang in there.” (Patricia Cornwell, 25:08)
• [26:16] Shocked by the formulaic nature of earlier mysteries, Cornwell blended clinical autopsies with compelling whodunits, essentially forging a new storytelling approach.
• She reveres Christie for her scientific puzzles, also recommending Thomas Harris' Silence of the Lambs and Capote's In Cold Blood. Outside crime, Cornwell prefers poetry (notably T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland) and classic fiction.

---

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On the energy of the morgue:

  • “It’s like a light bulb that’s burned out. It still remains the same shape it was, but whatever was in it is gone. Where did it go?” (Patricia Cornwell, 09:50)

• On experiencing life for research:

  • “As kids, we explored and then we get to be adults, and we’re not supposed to do that anymore. Yes, we are.” (Patricia Cornwell, 19:58)

• On reading crime fiction:

  • “It’s like if you sold shoes every day, you wouldn’t come home and read about shoes.” (Phoebe Judge, 23:33)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:13] Photo shoot story with Annie Leibovitz at the morgue
• [03:27] How Cornwell moved from journalism into the morgue and crime research
• [06:00] Sensory, physical, and emotional impacts of autopsies
• [11:49] Cornwell’s personal philosophy about death and what lies beyond
• [12:08] The origins of Kay Scarpetta and her impact on forensic fiction
• [18:33] The reality and etiquette of body farms; advice on dealing with the smell
• [21:18] The effect of crime reporting and listening to police scanners
• [24:05] Life-changing dream involving Agatha Christie and how it guided Cornwell
• [26:16] Recommendations of favorite crime and non-crime authors/works

---

Takeaways

• Patricia Cornwell’s perspective on death is uniquely nuanced, balancing scientific detachment, deep empathy, and a remarkable optimism.
• First-hand experience is essential for authenticity in both investigative and creative work: “There’s no substitute for showing up.”
• Her journey from reporter to crime novelist is marked by adaptability, persistence, and an unrelenting curiosity about the unseen truths behind every story.

---

Fans of true crime, writing, and forensic science will find this episode both enlightening and inspiring, offering a window into the world behind Patricia Cornwell’s celebrated novels and philosophy.

Transcript

[Patricia Cornwell]

We've all been there. You pop into the shop for five minutes and all of a sudden you've forgotten where you parked.

[Phoebe Judge]

Car Car.

[Patricia Cornwell]

Unfortunately, that lost feeling is what it's like trying to manage your policy with other insurers here. Car Come out, come out, wherever you are. Please. With Geico, you can use the app to easily manage all your policies in one place. Did this parking lot have a waterfall? I think you've wandered too far, mate.

[Phoebe Judge]

It feels good to find what you're looking for. It feels good to Geico heat up

[Patricia Cornwell]

your 4th of July at the Home Depot with our wide variety of grills under $300 and make every gathering one to remember. Give your outdoor space a glow up, whatever your budget is. With savings on seasonal plants starting at $5. With the grill fired up and your backyard set to perfection, you'll be able to invite friends and family over to kick off the party. Start celebrating. With low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot, prices may vary by store exclusions apply. Seehomedepot.com Pricematch for

[Phoebe Judge]

hi, it's Phoebe. As you probably know, here on Criminal, we normally put out our episodes on Fridays, but starting today we have something new to share with you. Recently I've been interviewing writers, reporters and journalists about stories I'm curious about. We're going to be sharing these more casual conversations here in the podcast feed on Tuesdays. You can also watch these new episodes on the criminal YouTube channel. We've got the link right in the show Notes Today I'm talking with crime novelist Patricia Cornwell. She's written many books, including 29 novels about a fictional forensic pathologist named Case Carpetta, who, as it turns out, is based on someone she knows well. Patricia Cornwell recently published a memoir called True Crime, and I started out by asking her about the COVID It's a picture of her wearing a lab coat and gloves and standing next to what appears to be a dead body on a gurney. Can you tell me about this picture on the COVID of your book? This is not exactly what I would expect.

[Patricia Cornwell]

This picture was in 1997. Annie Leibovitz did. She was doing a photo shoot of me for Vanity Fair, and so we were trying to get just the right picture. So first we started in the Richmond medical examiner's office, and that picture, you may have seen it before, I'm at an autopsy table and I have a cigarette hanging out of my mouth. And that was sort of the picture she was looking for. But the one you're talking about was taken in the cooler of that of the Richmond Medical Examiner's Office. And yes, indeed, that is a dead body. And that was. Annie Leibovitz took that photo. And the funny thing is the picture that's on the COVID when she was trying to take Pictures of me, Dr. Fierro, Marcella Fierro, who was the deputy chief at that time and my mentor, she was across the room with her little Canon sure shot camera. And every time Annie Leibovitz, the great Annie Leibovitz, is trying to take one of her pictures, Marcella's going snap. And the little flash cube is going off. And Annie finally lowers her massive camera, and she looks across the room and says, could you please just not do that while I'm doing this?

[Phoebe Judge]

You worked there in the 80s. What first got you into the morgue?

[Patricia Cornwell]

Well, that was not anything that I ever planned on, and I'm glad you asked, because a lot of people, they've assumed that I was working there. And while I was working there, I got ideas for writing books. It was the total opposite. I started out a journalist after college, and within six or eight months of being at the Charlotte observer in Charlotte, well, you know, North Carolina. In Charlotte, North Carolina, they assigned me the police beat. And that is what began my, quote. Life of crime was running around, you know, the late hours of the night, reporting on all the crimes in the Charlotte area and ending up on homicide scenes and talking to rape victims and shooting victims and stabbing victims and all this sort of thing. And so. But the one thing that I never knew when I was doing the police reporting is when I would go to a crime scene and. And the body was whisked away. I didn't know where are they taking it and what are they doing with it. There wasn't really. This was 1980 and 1981. There wasn't much known about this sort of thing publicly except for the show Quincy, whenever. That was long ago and far away. When I finally wrote the Ruth Graham biography, I left journalism. I wrote a biography of my dear friend Ruth Graham. And then I thought, what am I going to do? I'm going to try writing books about crime. Maybe that's something I can do. But I'd never been to a medical examiner's office or a morgue. So somebody got me an interview at the Richmond Medical Examiner's office. And I met Dr. Fierro for the first time in 1984, and she gave me a tour of the morgue, and I began doing research there. I was already trying to write a murder mystery, and I Would go talk to her. I would use her library. And after about the better part of a year of that, I wanted to see autopsies. And that was not gonna happen unless I had some sort of validity for being in the autopsy suite. And I said, well, what would it take to give me that validity? And she said, well, if you could become a volunteer police officer, that might do it. So I did.

[Phoebe Judge]

Well, tell me about that, about seeing your first autopsy. I mean, I've always. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but there are so many people who go through their whole lives never seeing a dead body. You know, maybe. Maybe you're with a loved one at the end of their life, but even. Even then, you know, what happens to you when you are surrounded by so many bodies?

[Patricia Cornwell]

It's not the same as seeing it on the news or on TV or in photographs. When you're actually in the presence of a room full of dead bodies. There. There. There's a weird energy I. I used to feel. You know, the morgue is the. I call it the morgue. That's like calling Hollywood Hollywood when it's just a word that means a lot of things. The autopsy suite, the medical examiner's facility. But when you're in that autopsy suite with all those bodies. I used to get so tired. I would get just so exhausted. It's almost as if you felt like the dead were trying to suck the life out of you, because they're. They're there. And then here's these living people are coming in and tending to them. And most of these people, a lot of them have been traumatized. They've been in car wrecks or they've been murdered, or they've died all by themselves because they didn't have a doctor. Most people that end up there, it's not a good thing. It means something's happened that causes it to be a medical examiner's case. So I would find I was stunned by how tired I would get when I would leave at the end of the day. I felt like someone had literally sucked the life out of me when I would. And part of it, I'm sure, is my emotional shields of using a tremendous amount of energy not to let these things get to me while I'm standing there. Because you're no good for anyone if you let that get to you while you're there. You cannot. You don't cry in front of this. You don't get hysterical. You don't flee the room. I mean, these are patients who need to be taken care of someone needs to. To care about these people and the people they've left behind and figure out what exactly happened to put you here. Because it's not just about justice, because sometimes there's not a villain, but it's also about life insurance policies and people trying to move on with their lives, and they're needing the medical examiner to help them do that because of the legal complications and all that go with it. But it's. It is very. Pictures are hard to look at, but being there in person is a different experience altogether.

[Phoebe Judge]

Are there any. I mean, this was a long time ago. I know, but are there any cases that stick out to you from your time there?

[Patricia Cornwell]

Oh, I have many cases that stand out to me from, from, from being there. And also, you know, I didn't. When I stopped working there, I didn't quit going to medical examiner's office. I mean, I kept doing research there really throughout my whole career at various. Not just in Virginia, but met at other medical examiners offices and other areas where I would go do research and spend several days watching cases with them and going to scenes, all to keep myself. You know, it's keeping myself sort of trained, sort of like an athlete, where you need to keep doing stuff or you'll lose. You'll lose it. So if you told me when I was a kid that this would be how I spent my time, I would have not only told you you were crazy, but I would have probably run from the room screaming, because that was not how I envisioned my life. But it's so important if you're going to write about it, let people feel it for what it is. You know, your eyes play tricks on you. You're down there sometimes and you think somebody just moved on the table, but they didn't. Or there's a strange, strange energy in there. I mean, we don't know. There are theories about how long consciousness kind of almost circles the body. And so particularly if somebody hadn't been dead long, if they weren't even put in the cooler, they came straight from the crime scene and were put right into the autopsy room. And you're looking at this person who is still not even that cold yet, and you look at their photograph and you think they look just like themselves, except that the energy that's in them is gone. It's like a light bulb that's burned out. It still remains the same shape it was, but whatever was in it is gone. Where did it go?

[Phoebe Judge]

I was interviewing Sebastian Younger, who wrote this book In My Time of Dying, and I was fascinated.

[Patricia Cornwell]

He's such a great author.

[Phoebe Judge]

He's such a great author.

[Patricia Cornwell]

And you tell him I'm a fan.

[Phoebe Judge]

I will tell him. My mother had just died, and I just read his book, and I was with my mother when she died. And so I was very interested in this idea of what happens exactly after death because I was alone with her for a number of minutes. And I read his book, and he talks a lot about how for so long we've been concerned that when the heart stops, life is over. But actually, as you were talking, you're. The activity in your brain goes on for much longer. And so this idea that we're just counting death at when you have cardiac arrest, when we know scientifically that the brain continues to fire for sometimes hours after cardiac arrest, is a real. I mean, this is the stuff that we're just starting to get to the scientific breaking point of. What actually does death mean?

[Patricia Cornwell]

Well, it. You know, people think they would assume that I am a very fatalistic, morbid kind of person who is convinced that death is waiting around the corner every other second. And by the way, I do know that danger might be around the corner every other second, but I don't have the attitude about death that people would expect that I do. I actually have a very hopeful attitude that I would not have had had I not been around it so much. And I've been around it so much that I don't believe it. Not the way other people believe it. I believe it is the end of your biological existence right here and now. But I do not believe it's the end of you. And even if I weren't a religious person, a spiritual person, I would still believe that after what I've seen.

[Phoebe Judge]

When you were back there with all these surrounded by dead bodies and the morgue, you decided that you should maybe write about a medical examiner. Tell me about the decision to create a character around a medical examiner.

[Patricia Cornwell]

It was all because I couldn't get published. Postmortem was my fourth attempt, and if that hadn't been accepted, I would think I might have quit. It's hard to say because I sometimes don't know when to give up. But that would have been four attempts at crime novels that nobody wanted. But an editor who had rejected three of my books suggested I make Scarpetta the main character because she was a minor character in my earlier ones. And the person told me, that is your best character. That's who I want to hear about. And by the way, these fanciful stories you're writing about buried treasure and cheated wills and you know, and archeology digs where something bad happens. Is that what you see at the medical examiner's office? I said never, never. Death there is ugly. She said, but I want to see what you see. So that's how post mortem started.

[Phoebe Judge]

We'll be right back. Support for Criminal Comes from Ritual when it comes to multivitamins, it's good to know exactly what you're putting in your body. Ritual is very clear about that. Ritual is essential for women. 18 multivitamin contains nine key nutrients important for your brain, bones and red blood cells. You take two capsules daily and the capsules are made with a delayed release design. I appreciate knowing exactly what's in my vitamins and on Ritual's website I learned that the Omega 3 I take comes from Canada. Vitamin K2 comes from Oslo, Norway, and the iron in my multivitamins is from Utah. Ritual multivitamins are made traceable, which means it's easy to find out where the ingredients come from and why they're included. Rituals Essential is also third party tested for heavy metals and clean label project certified. Instead of striving for perfect health, aim for supporting foundational health. Save 25% on your first month at ritual.com criminal that's ritual. Ritual.com criminal for 25% off your first month. Support for Criminal comes from Mint Mobile. We've all come across things that sound too good to be true, like cheap coffee where the price makes sense once you taste it. The same can happen with phone plans. You might see a great deal and wonder what's the catch. But sometimes the catch is that there is no catch like Mint Mobile offering premium wireless for just $15 a month. It's just a good deal. We have a friend who made the switch a while ago and he agrees it's a great deal. He says he's been saving money every month with his new plan. To get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to mintmobile.com phoebe that's mintmobile.com Phoebe cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com Phoebe that's it. There's no catch. $45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 a month. New customers on first three month plan only speed slower above 40 gigabytes on a limited plan. Additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. C Mint Mobile for details. What made me so jealous about the way you've lived your life? You know, besides the helicopters, I keep saying I have to get my pilot's license And I haven't done it yet, but I was. I'm on my way. I'm 42. By the time I'm 43, the lessons will have started.

[Patricia Cornwell]

That's about the age I was when I. I didn't get my pilot's license till I was, like, 43. I think I was 43 when I got it.

[Phoebe Judge]

Okay, well, it's not too late.

[Patricia Cornwell]

No, it's not, honey. You're just getting started. You're. As my mother used to say, you're a spring chicken.

[Phoebe Judge]

Well, I've just. But here's the wonderful thing that I think that you've been able to do, and I hope what I like so much about what I get to do is this morning I was talking to people who disentangle whales from fishing equipment. And yesterday I was talking about a wholly different. I was talking about cyber crimes. And the wonderful thing is that it's always different and you get to have these new experiences. But what you've done is you have jumped in the deep end. If you're gonna write a book, it seems to me you need to know what you're writing about. You know, for example, the scuba diving. You wanted to. You decided one day, I wanna. How about underwater crime?

[Patricia Cornwell]

Why not happen.

[Phoebe Judge]

Why not? But I better go scuba diving. And you did it.

[Patricia Cornwell]

Yeah. Now I want to set something on us, on the moon, but I think that I'm not sure rockets are going to be in my future. But, I mean, if I could. But I'm just going to tell you, and I bet you would, too, if someone said, if you can take a rocket to the moon and write a story about it, would you do it in one second. There you go. Me, too. Just go out and experience whatever anybody lets you. And as a writer, use your. Your research interests as an excuse to do something that you wouldn't do otherwise. I would never have gone scuba diving had I not wanted to do it, for it wouldn't occur to me. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of training, and it's scary. I find it scary trying to breathe underwater. Even now, after all the times I've done it and I haven't been in a number of years now, who knows if I will again? But when I first jump in the water and I'm floating and waiting to go down the line down to. Do you scuba dive?

[Phoebe Judge]

Yeah, I just did 110ft through a cave. And I thought, phoebe, the goal here is not to panic.

[Patricia Cornwell]

And you're talking about me. I'm not going in no cave. But don't you agree that if you didn't do it, you would never write it the way you could write it because you've experienced it?

[Phoebe Judge]

Well, that was so interesting when you went to the body farm. We also did a story about a body farm in Texas, not the original in Tennessee, but there's enough question. Yes, you said something about when you first got there, and it was the same experience that I had. I thought there was gonna be big protocols with suits that I was gonna have to wear. And I walked in there and they gave me a little pair of boots to wear on top of my shoes, and they said, this is for the decomp fluid and nothing else. And here we go. And they just gave you a little pair of gloves.

[Patricia Cornwell]

Yeah, well, exactly. And what they don't give you is a surgical mask and clue for the future. If they suggest that you put Vicks up your nose. Oh, no, no, no. Do not ever do that. The real pros know you don't ever put Vicks up your nose when you get into a stinky situation, whether it's a decomp in the morgue or at the body farm or at a crime scene. Because the science of odor is molecular. And so what you're smelling is particulate that's causing the stink. It may be invisible and microscopic, but that the putrefaction element of this is something. Those molecules then get stuck in the ointment you've just put up your nose. So now what you've done is you put a fly catcher right in your face instead of across the room. So don't use Vicks or anything up your nose. No petroleum jelly, nothing up your nose. The other thing is as awful as it. And the smells are the thing that I have the hardest time with. I really do. I cannot stand it. And the body farms are terrible because decomp is awful. But if you don't experience something, if you have a reason to want to experience something, then you should do it as long as it's appropriate. I mean, don't break the law or kill somebody or do something awful. But there's no substitute for showing up. And don't forget, that's what autopsy means. Autopsia is the Greek word to mean to look for yourself, to see for yourself. And I encourage anybody that's doing anything that requires research. If you can do something that helps you understand it better by participating, whether it's flying a plane or scuba diving or walking through a certain area or explore. I mean, as kids, we explored and then we get to be adults, and we're not supposed to do that anymore. Yes, we are.

[Phoebe Judge]

You haven't been to the moon, so you haven't set a crime on the moon yet. Is there any other. Is there any other experience you want to have?

[Patricia Cornwell]

I'm jealous of Agatha Christie because there was so many cool things she got to do that you can't. I mean, I don't know that you can do now, like going on archeology digs, you know, going to archeology things like in Egypt, like she did. And these wonderful pictures of her on a balcony overlooking the pyramids. And I would love to see things like that, but I. You know, I don't know what may be ahead, but I do know that the world is not that open like it once was. You've got to be careful where you go. I would love to be on a safari in Africa. Not, I mean, not the bad kind, but to see these majestic animals in person in a safe way. Because I love elephants, tigers, bears. I love them all.

[Phoebe Judge]

We talked about this. But you started out, you know, your journalism career started out. You were doing crime reporting. I still, to this day, sometimes I don't know what this says about me, but I'll turn the police scanner on because they have these apps now on your phone. You don't have to just have one in your car. And I listen to the police scanner from Chicago, where I'm from, and I don't know why it gives me comfort in this odd way, but I also just think it's such a weird, interesting look into humanity, into just the stuff that you hear. What was it like when you turned that scanner on for the first time when you were doing the crime beat, to just hear all the things that go on that we don't hear about every day?

[Patricia Cornwell]

It completely shattered my view of reality when I began to see the kind of crimes that were going on that you don't know about if you're just your average person. But if you're listening to the scanner, and I had one on my desk in the newsroom, and I had one in the staff car, I drove so everywhere I was when I was on duty on my beat that, you know, I was listening to a scanner. And that absolutely shattered my worldview. I mean, I would drive home from work, and now I'm scared. And I didn't used to be, you know, a shadow could fall across my windshield, and I'd jump in the car because something. I'm startled easily. Had I not been a police Reporter. I really don't think I would be sitting here today. I don't know. I mean, it never occurred to me to write about crime. I never read a murder mystery in my life. I never had. I never did. Till I started trying to write them. I still don't read much in the way of that. I never have. And it's not a disparagement of the genre. It's more a statement of how poorly read I am. But it. But, yes, you. You can't see what. You cannot look death in the face and violence in the face and walk away unchanged unless there's something not quite right with you. In my opinion, you can't be a naive person and think that bad things don't really happen. If you're nice, it's not true. But you also can't forget there's a lot of good people in the world. And I know plenty of them too.

[Phoebe Judge]

If you had to think about. And I get not reading a lot of crime. People say that to me too. Phoebe, aren't you. You're surrounded by crime all the time. And I think, well, it's like if you sold shoes every day, you wouldn't come home and read about shoes. You wouldn't want. You know, I mean, I'm so interested in a million other things besides crime. But if you had to recommend a crime novelist, you know, that you admire, would it be Agatha Christie? Who would it be?

[Patricia Cornwell]

Oh, well, listen, there's nobody like Agatha Christie. And, you know, and it's funny. One of the things, the stories I tell in my books, in my memoir, I mean, is that it was probably about 1984 and I was trying my hand at writing my first murder mystery. And I did not know what I was doing. I couldn't. I had no earthly idea. And it's a terrible feeling when you sit down and it doesn't talk to you. It's like you're playing a dead keyboard. And I just. I thought, I don't know where to go with all this. I'm not good at this. I'm never going to be good in this. I'd already started doing, I think, some of the research at the Emmy's office. But I still couldn't figure out how to tell the story. I mean, how do you write about autopsies but tell a. Who done it at the same time? There was no formula for what I was trying to do. I didn't realize I was kind of creating a new one. And so I had this dream one night where Agatha. I was Waiting in a line. And Agatha Christie was doing a book sign. And it was so real, it was like I was watching it. I was awake and asleep at the same time. My eyes were shut, but I couldn't move. And there's this movie playing in my head like this. And I'm in that line and I get up to the table and there's Agatha Christie and looks just like her with the big hat and she had on all black. And she's just signing books and not looking at anybody. So when I get to her, I just said, thank you. It's an honor to meet you. And she's signing and she says something. She says, you will take my place. And I said, excuse me. And she looked up at me briefly and she said, you will take my place. And she pushed the book back to me. And that was it. The dream was over. And I woke up and I thought, what the hell was that? And I looked her up in our World Book Encyclopedia, and she looked just like the picture in there that I'm not sure I'd ever seen before. But the point was, of course, I've never taken her place and could never take her place. Nobody will take her place. But it's almost like something from beyond through that entity that was in my head. You know, we talk about, where do people go when they die? I don't know, but it was like something said, don't give up. Don't give up. You're going to do better than you think. Just hang in there.

[Phoebe Judge]

Well, you figured you figured it out.

[Patricia Cornwell]

Well, I don't know that I figured it out, but I always would recommend Agatha Christie to people because she's not just a mystery writer. She's very scientific. She's exact. And she is a Rubik's cube. You know, she's a walking Rubik's Cube. I mean, seriously, how she comes up with her puzzles. I don't know. What a mind that woman had. I love Thomas Harris. If anybody's not read Silence of the Lambs, to me, that's probably one of the very best crime novels ever written. Truman Capote, In Cold Blood is worth reading, but I don't read a lot of crime. See, it's like you said, about the person who sells shoes. Maybe. I tend to. I love nonfiction. I love to read good biographies. I. Let's see, what else do I like to read? I like to read poetry, believe it or not. I have a copy of T.S. eliot's the Wasteland on my shelf over here now. And then I'll pull it out because it's most beautiful writing I've ever read in my life. Is that is my favorite, favorite poem and how on earth somebody wrote something like that? Because, you know, in my heart of hearts, as much as I love my research and being able to explore things that most people don't know about and finding a way to to incorporate them into a story, at the end of the day, what I always dreamed of when I was young and writing was I wanted to be a good writer. And so to read people like Hemingway or T.S. eliot and to look at what they do and to study the way they put a sentence together, it's like watching Roger Federer play tennis. It's like watching the Cirque du Soleil or Olympic gymnasts do things that I go how on earth did you just do that?

[Phoebe Judge]

Patricia, thank you very much for talking.

[Patricia Cornwell]

Well, it's been my pleasure.

[Phoebe Judge]

Patricia Cornwell's new memoir is called True Crime, and since we talked, I've officially signed up for my first flying lesson. If you'd like to watch the video of this interview and our other upcoming video interviews, follow [e-mail] criminalpodcast or just click the link in our show Notes I'm Phoebe Judge. Thanks for listening.

[Patricia Cornwell]

When I scraped my car in that

[Phoebe Judge]

parking garage, I was worried that it

[Patricia Cornwell]

could be a long process to take care of it.

[Phoebe Judge]

Like a landscaper's first day trimming a hedge maze.

[Patricia Cornwell]

I have definitely already been here. Now, was it left right or right left? Well, maybe I'll cut a path out and find my way back later. But it wasn't like that. I filed a claim in under two

[Phoebe Judge]

minutes on the Geico app and they

[Patricia Cornwell]

handled it from there. It was taken care of almost as quickly as it happened.

[Phoebe Judge]

It feels good to get help quick. It feels good to Geico. Uncovered windows can make your home feel up to 20 degrees hotter. Stay cool and save up to 45% off custom window treatments during the 4th of July VIP access sale at blinds.com from Outdoor Shades to room darkening blinds,

[Patricia Cornwell]

finding the perfect fit is easy. Get free samples, expert design help and

[Phoebe Judge]

professional measure and install services or DIY it with confidence and support every step of the way. Shop up to 45% off site wide right now during the 4th of July

[Patricia Cornwell]

VIP access sale at blinds.com.