True Crime: A Memoir

The uneven debut autobiography from crime novelist Cornwell (the Kay Scarpetta series) catalogs her rise to literary fame. Born in 1956 Miami, Cornwell endured a tumultuous early life: her father walked out on the family when she was five, and her mother grew erratic (an early anecdote details her burning Cornwell and her brothers’ possessions). As a young adult, Cornwell became determined to write novels, and she spent years working on manuscripts that were rejected before she sold her first book, the thriller Postmortem, to Scribner for $6,000 in 1989. The novel won an Edgar Award and introduced medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, who became the anchor of a bestselling series that made Cornwell a celebrity. After Cornwell’s profile rises, however, the memoir loses its footing. A section on her public crusade to identify Jack the Ripper in the early 2000s fails to address the critiques of her methods and conclusions in the press, and Cornwell name-drops to mostly minor effect, as when she reveals discussing O.J. Simpson’s guilt with Bill Clinton before the trial concluded. Though the memoir starts strong, readers unfamiliar with Cornwell’s fiction will find little here to grab onto, and even the author’s fans are likely to find it long-winded. Agent: Esther Newberg, CAA. (May)