Kay Scarpetta comes to life

Patricia Cornwell fans will be thrilled. Her popular creation, medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta, will coming to life on the big screen – with Angelina Jolie taking the leading role.

Variety is reporting that Jolie and Cornwell will be working with Fox 2000 to create films based on Cornwell's bestselling mystery novels (there are 16 to date) about Scarpetta (an opera-loving coroner) and her life and work.

But according to youbentmywookie.com, the movies will not be tied to specific books. Instead, the creators of the Scarpetta films will follow the example of the popular "Bourne" films, in which "Jason Bourne morphed into an action hero in plots not rigidly locked into the Robert Ludlum book series."

Cornwell, who once worked as a crime reporter for The Charlotte Observer, has an unusual literary heritage in that she is a descendant of Harriet Beecher Stowe.

She has also been involved in a recent controversy over the identity of Jack the Ripper. Her 2002  book, "Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper – Case Closed," charges British painter Walter Sickert with the crimes.