Cornwell Funds Scholarships

Author Patricia Cornwell is ponying up another 20 grand for scholarships to the University of Tennessee's National Forensics Academy. (The "body farm" at UofT -- where they study the decomposition rate of corpses -- was used as a model for the one in her book.)

Cornwell takes a lot of shots in the mystery world, due to her eccentricities, politics and overall loopyness, but gestures like this show she's not all bad.

She also has a new book coming out in a couple of weeks that's supposed to be pretty good. If it is, I'm sure that will help restore her reputation a bit as well.