She was the first woman and American to win the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for her novel Theory of War.
[7][8] This book also won the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger and a US National Endowment for the Arts grant.
Two novels followed, Death Comes for Peter Pan, an exposé of medical abuse in America, and The Emigre, the adventures of a conman.
She started writing crime fiction during a legal battle over fumes from a nearby shoemaker from which she won a large settlement.
Its sequel Venom, published in 2010, introduces the theme of pharmaceutical ruthlessness in pursuit of a cure for radiation poisoning.