Patricia Cornwell

Author Patricia Cornwell has come a long way since her days as a crime reporter for the Charlotte Observer and a computer analyst at the chief medical examiner’s office in Richmond, Va.

She’s published more than 30 books; 22 of them focus on her forensic scientist/crime-solving protagonist, Dr. Kay Scarpetta.

The latest, “Flesh and Blood,” was published Tuesday. Cornwell discussed it, and her work and inspirations, in a telephone interview.

QUESTION: How do you approach each new book?

ANSWER: I begin each of these stories to create an experience for people, an adventure. It goes beyond just the written words on the page. Part of my mission is to go out and do things that give me such a tactile experience, a physical one, so that if I’m describing a scene - whether it’s Scarpetta out on a mile-long firing range in the miserable heat of New Jersey in the summer, whether it’s scuba diving a shipwreck almost a hundred feet on the bottom of the ocean in the Bermuda Triangle - whatever it is, I want the reader to feel they are doing this, to make it that vivid for them. I want people to have a little bit of a roller coaster ride.

QUESTION: How do you stay ahead of your readers?

ANSWER: I go out and do research, look for new and different ways to pose crime problems that Scarpetta is going to turn over. What can I do at the crime scene, what can I do to fool her? There’s an answer that is couched in the world of science. If she does her homework, she’s going to have a moment when she goes, ‘Oh, my God, now I see how this happened.’ For (“Flesh and Blood”), I found a new technology in firearms that a lot of people don’t know about yet. I did a lot of scuba diving around shipwrecks, because I have a big finale that has to do with that.

QUESTION: You’ve switched styles over the years, from first person to third person and back to first, and between present tense and past tense. Is that about making the reader feel like she’s really there?

ANSWER: Yes, it is. I went with first person in the early days. Then for a while I experimented with the third person point of view, because I really feel that when you switch perspectives, it’s a little more like a movie. But I found that my fans were not happy with that. They really like to be in Scarpetta’s head.

So for the last four, five years, I’ve been back to telling the stories from her point of view. I like to use present tense, because, again, I want it to be the same kind of experience as when you turn on a beloved television series. You lose yourself instantly in the drama; you feel that it’s happening as you’re watching it.

QUESTION: Has the character developed over the years?

ANSWER: Scarpetta’s changed a lot over the years. She debuted in 1990, and obviously we don’t live on that same planet anymore. I don’t even know what planet that was.

The things that threaten our stability, our security, our happiness, are very different than they were in the 1990s. We didn’t have 9-11. We weren’t constantly preoccupied with our government spying on us, and a war that never ends. It seems like a very idyllic life, compared to what we have today. So, obviously, Scarpetta is not going to be the same person. She’s affected by these changes the same way you and I are. ...