Braced with Scotch, Princess Margaret Gives Patricia Cornwell Britain's Creasy Award
They were well-lubed when the royal guard grabbed the groundbreaking novelist and gave her the hook.
Patricia Cornwell’s Postmortem published in 1990 changed crime fiction forever. The crime novels you read, the movies you watch, the television series airing nightly—all of those crime scene investigation stories started with her novel Postmortem.Her protagonist, Kay Scarpetta, is a medical examiner in Richmond, Va. All of this started with Cornwell’s humble beginnings working in the Richmond medical examiner’s office.
Her first review in her hometown paper, The Richmond Times-Dispatch, trashed her novel. But weeks later, a favorable review in the L.A. Times launched her career. Soon after she received a call from her agent, Michael Congdon. She’d won the John Creasy Award from the British Crime Writers Association for best first novel, and Princess Margaret was going to be handing out the award.
She was still young, had little money and was about to meet royalty. She needed a dress. So, she found a fancy clothing store on Cary Street, a popular area near downtown Richmond.
“I couldn’t get any help because I didn’t look like I belonged,” she says. After finally getting a clerk’s attention, Cornwell told her she was going to be meeting royalty and needed a proper dress. “Suddenly, she brought out this wooden box for me to stand on and they started bringing out all types of sequined and beaded tops and dresses. They even taught me how to curtsy…I felt like Ma Kettle goes to the big city.”
The day of the presentation, her publisher took her to a London wine bar. Not meaning to, they stayed the afternoon. They finally returned to the hotel to dress for the ceremony and Cornwell realized she’d never put on her new beaded top without someone to help zip up the back. Alone in her hotel room, she couldn’t get the zipper beyond her waist. Desperate for help, she opened her hotel door and saw a man walking down the hall. She begged for his help. He obliged and she quickly shooed him out of her room, not wanting him to get the wrong idea.
Fortunately, when they arrived for the event, they realized they weren’t the only ones who had been drinking that afternoon. Princess Margaret had been tipping a bottle of Scotch, “so we were all very well lubricated.”
The Princess, Cornwell said, “was very charming and nice.” Backstage after the presentation, Margaret asked Cornwell how long it had taken her to write her novel. About a year, she told the Princess. Not wanting to let the conversation lapse into uncomfortable silence, Cornwell asked the Princess about horses. She mistook Margaret’s fondness for horses for another royal, the Queen. But that wasn’t the issue. Just asking the question was a royal no-no. Quickly, a red-coated British guard escorted Cornwell away.
“If there ever was a hook moment, that was it,” Cornwell says with a laugh.
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Rick Pullen is the author of the best selling thriller Naked Ambition, its sequel Naked Truth, and a stand-alone thriller The Apprentice.
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