Dear Dr. Scarpetta...

I think that that woman could be the only person on earth who has put up with so many psychopaths breaking into her house at night.

Kay Scarpetta in the medical examiner (yes, a coroner) in Richmond, Virginia in Patricia Cornwell's mystery novels. With her detective "buddy" Marino, they're basically the average pair of people who solve crimes like in any other mystery novel.
What I like about Cornwell's books though are that you get to actually see into Kay's real life, a.k.a, her life at home, not just her bloody life at the morgue and with her jack*** of a commissioner named Amburgey. She actually has real feelings! (Unlike some un-blogging worthy books I've read).
Kay has a weird way to relieve her stress from work. Who wouldn't? I think that you need a little more than yoga or getting drunk to help yourself feel better when you're getting stalked by a guy who's planning to trick you then stab you or strangle you and rape you like he did to 5 other women.
So, Kay relieves herself by cooking Italian food. It's like a little blanket that she hides under from the rest of the world. After a hard day at work she goes home, drinks some liquor, and prepares to go to bed.
I always will wonder when she realizes that making food and drinking alcohol won't help anything, especially since she always happens to it a few days before or the very day that the person who killed everybody else tries to kill her, too.
I think that maybe for some people who hide from the world like Kay have a thick, tight warm blanket around them, but sometimes the blankets have small holes or tears that make the people inside them feel insecure. We all fell insecure, but when you've been in a cocoon for a while, you sort of get used to the dark. Then, when you see the outside world, you're frozen like a deer in headlights because you're so used to seeing the world from the inside of a safe little shell. As tempting as it may be to be addicted to the darkness and not want to see the reality side of things, you always should. If you don't, you're living your whole life in isolation. You're ignoring the world and what it has to offer. And maybe when the opportunity of a lifetime comes along, you'll be hiding. You won't even be there to miss it.

But keep it up, Scarpetta!
KEEP FIGHTING THE EVIL FORCES