Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta novels are set firmly in the detective fiction subgenre of forensic pathology. Scarpetta is a pathologist who also actively detects. While the role of coroner or forensics expert has recurred in detective fiction from its earliest days—for example, R. Austin Freeman's Dr. Thorndyke, a forensic pathologist and forensic scientist (early 1900s), H. C. Bailey's crusading Reggie Fortune, critic of police bungling of evidence (1920s), C. St.
John Sprigg's Sir Colin Vansteen, consultant pathologist to His Majesty's Home Office (1930s), and George Harmon Coxe's Dr.
Paul Standish, medical examiner of Union City, Connecticut—the early fictional forensic experts were short on biochemical expertise, asserting knowledge about the victim and crime that, from a modern perspective, seems highly dubious, though their detection may well hold up in other areas.
In contrast, the modern.....
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