I spend a lot of time in dark places. When I travel, I’ll go to the catacombs or the morgue in Paris, or I’ll spend time going through the Transit tunnels in New York City, because a body is going to be found there in one of my books. My partner, Staci, spent time in London with me, and we were always in the public-record office at Kew, because of my research into Jack the Ripper. My point is, I’m not sure anybody would want to follow me around on my travels.
Sometimes, though, I really need to get away from the darkness. I was working on a book where you had this deranged killer striking in South Carolina, and I spent time in the medical examiner’s office and places with a gothic darkness, like a swamp with a lot of alligators. So the next thing I did was go off to Venice and Rome. Boy, did I have fun. I walked around Venice and went in a boat to an old monastery, where I discovered an altar that had been carved 500 years ago — and the name of the woodcarver was Scarpetta. I said, “Holy smoke!” I never see that name anywhere, and there it is carved on the bottom of this altar.
I like to splurge. Hotel Hassler, in Rome, is probably my favourite hotel. My biggest splurges are machines, though — helicopters, planes, motorcycles, Ferraris. There’s no rational reason on the planet why you need a Ferrari.
I love hiking but I want to do it safely. I get worried someone could come out of nowhere. It's the dark side of who I am I’ve flown a helicopter across Britain. What a thing it is to fly from London to Glasgow. I’ll never forget flying in and out of the mist, seeing how green all of it is. I used to fly from Boston down to Key West a lot. Flying in the Keys is unbelievable. You’ll be really low and the shadow of the helicopter is right under you in the emerald water. It looks like there’s a whale beneath you, and you can see the turtles and the stingrays.
I love to hike in beautiful parts of the world, but I want to see nature safely. I get worried being somewhere where someone could come out of nowhere and you can’t protect yourself. So you’re not going to get me hiking the Appalachian Trail. It may be perfectly safe, but I’ve heard too many awful stories. This is the dark side of who I am — I know way too much about what happens to people.
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I love walking in cities, too. I’ve walked a lot in London, and done humongous walks in Paris. I once walked all the way to the French Open at the Roland Garros stadium. It was a 20-something-miler, and we’d stop for wine and food at cafes.
If I’m doing research on a geographic area, I walk it. I want to live, breathe and feel it, the same way cops walk around areas where crimes occurred. When you see graphic descriptions in my books of buildings or parts of a city, it’s because I spent time walking there, taking notes.
I love, love, love the ocean, going out on boats and scuba-diving. There are great diving areas around Bermuda, with shipwrecks that go back to the 18th century. I’ve seen sharks there, and I had a close encounter with an enormous moray eel in Grand Cayman — it was like a green sea dragon.
My most extravagant trip was many years ago. I flew Concorde from London to New York, then got a private jet to Richmond, Virginia, from where I flew my helicopter to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. I don’t think many people could say they’ve done a trip like that.
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Patricia Cornwell, 59, is an American crime writer whose books have sold more than 100m copies. She is best known for her novels featuring the medical examiner Dr Kay Scarpetta, but has also written the controversial Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper — Case Closed. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts, with her partner, Staci Ann Gruber. The latest Scarpetta novel, Depraved Heart (HarperCollins £20), is published on Thursday. To buy it for £18, inc p&p, call 0845 271 2135 or visit thesundaytimes. co.uk/bookshop