Nor does he have a splendid suite of offices and an eight-person staff seemingly put on this earth to insure he has nothing to do but write for an average of 14 hours a day. Too, his output is unaccompanied by the kind of memorabilia more commonly associated with blockbuster movies and basketball teams. The reason is not simply that her novels have sold well into the millions and been translated into 22 languages and that the orders for ''Cause of Death'' were cause for Champagne well before publication. It's that mystery readers are, on the whole, addicts. True, the fare may be essentially light, but it leaves the reader with the illusion of having had a really heavy experience.
Some readers regret the trend.
You know you're going to get a book a year. You more or less know its length, you know your audience and you know how many to print. You're going to get an 80 to 85 percent sell-through on stuff from the big writers. Cornwell is among those at the top of the list of good solid mystery writers. You get to know her fast.