As forensic favourite Kay Scarpetta returns for a 24th installment, bestselling thriller writer Patricia Cornwell talks to Hannah Stephensonabout plastic surgery, how the dramas in her own life have given her a thicker skin, and why she was happy to ignore her 60th birthday.

She has struggled with anorexia, alcohol and depression, among other dramas. But, like her heroine Dr Kay Scarpetta, bestselling novelist Patricia Cornwell has mellowed, she tells Hannah Stephenson.