Patricia Cornwell, who has created a literary empire with her crime-solving character Kay Scarpetta, is suing her financial advisers, claiming that they burned through tens of millions of her money since 2005. (And you thought your 401(k) was in the toilet.) The federal lawsuit against Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP, detailed on The Daily Beast. makes for some interesting reading. The complaint notes that Cornwell is bi-polar, has her own helicopter and makes more than $10 million per year. It also questions a $5,000 check to adviser's daughter for her Bat Mitzvah, and says the adviser told Cornwell and her partner, Dr. Staci Gruber, to pose as Middle Easterners to lease a New York apartment.

From the complaint: -- "Ms. Cornwell is a best-selling crime novelist whose ability to write is dependent upon the ability to avoid distractions. A quiet, uninterrupted environment, free of the distractions of managing her business and her assets, was essential to her ability to write and to meet her deadlines. Further, Ms. Cornwell openly acknowledges her diagnosis with a mood disorder known as bi-polar disorder, which, although controlled without medication, has contributed to her belief that it is prudent for her to employ others to manage her business affairs."

-- "In July of 2009, after four and a half years in which Anchin controlled Ms. Cornwell’s and CEI’s business affairs and investments ... Ms. Cornwell demanded information as to her net worth, and that of CEI. Notwithstanding eight figure earnings per year during that period, CEI and Ms. Cornwell learned that their net worth, while substantial, was the equivalent of only approximately one year’s net income. They also learned that Anchin had borrowed on their behalf collectively several million dollars, comprised of mortgages for real property and a loan for the purchase of a helicopter."