Patricia Cornwell, the best-selling crime novelist, is out with her new book Dust, the newest in the popular series featuring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Cornwell is known for uncovering the latest technological advances in forensic science, and the book’s title refers to Scarpetta’s use of forensic imaging in her work. “One of the first things that she does when she’s examining the body, without really moving it or touching it, is she shines a ultraviolet light because sometimes that will cause residues and fibers and other types of trace evidence to fluorescence,” Cornwell told Uinterview exclusively. “So dust comes from the fact that when she shines this light on the body of a women, there’s this electric florescence of these brilliant colors — red, green and blue.”

Cornwell integrates the tragic Sandy Hook 2012 school shootings into Dust. “One of the things that went through my mind, since that part of Connecticut is not that far from where Scarpetta’s headquarters, was, ‘You know, in real life, she probably would have responded and helped her colleagues out in this,'” said Cornwell. “I try to keep Scarpetta in the world that the rest of us inhabit, and it’s a painful decision sometimes because I could look the other way but I don’t think that’s the right thing to do.”

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Q: Why did you include the real-life reference to the Sandy Hook shooting in this book? - Uinterview

The decision I made about that was well after I had started this book and when that horrible case occurred, I was as devastated as everybody else. One of the things that went through my mind, since that part of Connecticut is not that far from where Scarpetta's headquarters, was, 'You know, in real life, she probably would have responded and helped her colleagues out in this'. And that led me to the next question of, 'What would that do to her?' We haven't seen her really quite that devastated by the cases that she works on, although they have a strong effect on her. She's now squared up against a very different monster in modern times, not just in terms of what happened in Newton. But if you look at, in this book they're called 'spectacle killings,' where you have what are almost like Walking Dead people who commit these horrific crimes. Other human beings are nothing to them, they have no regard for themselves and ultimately, as we're seeing in real life, they're almost like suicide bombers. They want to go out in a blaze of evil glory, right up to being acknowledged by the White House. These are the types of cases we're seeing. And this is nothing Scarpetta was ever up against in the early days of her career but it is the types of cases that she would be working. So what we see in the beginning of Dust is not that case itself because I never take you there. We see the aftermath in her own emotions, when she comes home and immediately comes down with the flu. She's trying to recover, both from the memories and from getting sick, when the phone rings and she's off to work at 3 o' clock in the morning. And this begins a series of other crimes, not with the same type of killer but yet again a modern monster, somebody who is creating spectacles at the expense of his victims. I try to keep Scarpetta in the world that the rest of us inhabit, and it's a painful decision sometimes because I could look the other way. But I don't think that's the right thing to do. I know the types of things that she would be seeing. I know the very powerful opinions that she would have about it, as would her colleagues, both FBI and the local police. It gives me the opportunity to share the point of view that really comes, quite honestly, from me having so much association with the people who do the work.

Q: Why do you think 'spectacle killings' are becoming more common today? - Uinterview

I think it is a really complex social issue and there's not one easy answer what to do about it. I know everybody thinks it will be fixed by gun control but I promise you, I truly believe there isn't any one thing that's going to fix this. You have people who seem to be empty vessels. They feel that they have no reason to be here and they probably get the idea from other similar crimes that they're going to do something that's going to make them really famous and it's worth it to them to lose their life in the process. Sandy Hook is not the only case we've seen like this. We're seeing it all too often these days. I think we're going to have to study this and say, 'What are the components that are creating this and what can we do as a society to protect ourselves?' Because we should be able to go to the movies, or a shopping mall, or an airport or to school and not worry about mass murder. This is a new problem, a relatively new problem in America and the more it happens, the more it will happen. I do think that some of the ways we handle it are not helpful. I think when you show video recordings of these people doing the shootings from what's on the video cameras, I think when the White House acknowledges these events... It's one thing to deal with the victims and the families later but when the first thing that we're hearing is some statement from the White House, it's giving way too much glory and power to these very disturbed people. And there are always going to be others afterwards who are going to get the idea. We're going to have to take a very hard look at this because I'm afraid it's not going to go away.

Q: Your novel is titled Dust. What role does dust play in the plot? - Uinterview

When Scarpetta is called to the first crime scene in Dust, after she's just gotten home from Connecticut, she goes out to MIT, where a body has been found. One of the first things that she does when she's examining the body, without really moving it or touching it, is she shines a ultraviolet light because sometimes that will cause residues and fibers and other types of trace evidence to fluorescence. Therefore you can see these things where you might not see it with the naked eye. That's really important because it might be something that she wants to collect right there at the scene to make sure it's not lost by the time the body is transported to her facility. So Dust comes from the fact that when she shines this light on the body of a women wrapped in a strange white cloth out in the middle of a playing field, there's this electric florescence of these brilliant colors - red, green, and blue - and it's everywhere and she's, wondering, 'What is this?' Of course, she collects some of it there and she collects more of it later. It turns out this same residue which she has analyzed in the labs is related to some other cases that have happened in the Washington, D.C. area. So part of what she has to unravel here is, 'What is this residue?' 'What might it be from?' and 'What is it telling us?' That is just one of many things, many trails she has to go down in trying to figure out who is committing these horrible crimes.

Q: What type of research did you do to prepare for in writing Dust? - Uinterview

One of the interesting things in Dust, and I've had this before but I explore it in more detail, is that Scarpetta is using forensic imaging. There are new techniques that are just beginning to be implemented in forensic medicine where we are using the same type of imaging that we use on the dead that we use on the living. A good example are CT scans. Scarpetta has a scanner in her medical examiner's office and she instantly has reasons to be suspicious that this first victim may have actually died prematurely - that whatever this bad person was doing to her, he didn't finish because she died. So that leads [Scarpetta] down a path of trying to see if this person may have had an underlying medical condition, particularly with her heart. So [Scarpetta] does another procedure that implements forensic imaging. It's called postmortem angiography, where you actually inject a dye into blood vessels to see if there is a disease process going on or even an injury that might explain something that happened to the victim. Sometimes these things aren't really seen once you take a blade to the body. So she's doing this 3-dimensional imaging on the entire body, inside and out, before she ever takes a blade to it and it tells her a very interesting story. It begins to explain what may have happened to this person and she begins to reconstruct. So I did a lot of research on that with, particularly, the Maryland Medical Examiner's Office where they are actually doing these scans and have one of these scanners. It's been a whole new thing for me to learn about.

Q: You're working on a TV show for ABC. What is the idea behind this new series? - Uinterview

I have a new character. I have a lot of interesting characters who walk through my mind, but I can't write books about all of them because Scarpetta takes up pretty much all of my time. So I thought, 'You know what? Wouldn't it be fun to create some really great characters for television?' The first one I've been working on is a young woman who is a police investigator with very special talents and a very unusual past. Her name is Greta Stone. Right now, we're working on the pilot for ABC with the high hopes that it will spin off into a dramatic series, but I think it's a character that is a very interesting woman that everybody is going to like a lot and find fascinating to watch.