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THE CHEMISTRY OF DEATH
by Simon Beckett
Bantam, March 2006
336 pages
10.00GBP
ISBN: 0593055217


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

THE CHEMISTRY OF DEATH is the kind of book where you mop your brow and loosen your collar often -- even if it is the middle of winter and several degrees below freezing outside!

It features Dr David Hunter, a man with a tragic past, who ends up working as a GP in a small and decidedly un-picturesque Norfolk village.

The village of Manham is claustrophobic and unfriendly to outsiders and peopled largely by slopey foreheads. It's a boiling hot summer and the tension rises to explosive proportions when a serial killer starts bumping off women and leaving their bodies weirdly mutilated. David's past as a leading forensic anthropologist catches up with him and he reluctantly finds himself part of the investigation.

It's always fun to know where writers got their ideas from. Writer Simon Beckett visited the rather gruesomely-named Body Farm in Tennessee, US, which houses the National Forensic Academy, to write a feature for a UK newspaper.

What Beckett saw there as police officers and crime scene investigators worked on crime scenes -- with human remains where possible -- sparked off the idea for THE CHEMISTRY OF DEATH.

And it's a tremendous debut novel, peopled by some vivid characters. Aside from David, who has exiled himself from London in an attempt to forget the death of his wife and child, there's his new colleague Henry who is confined to a wheelchair after the car accident that killed his wife. There's also young schoolteacher Jenny, the hideous vicar Scarsdale and the Brenners, a local family who may well be more than just poachers.

The police procedural aspect seems almost incidental at times, and the police characters often seem to be taking a back seat. What makes this an outstanding page-turner is the assured storytelling, and the focus on a man who at the start seems determined to bury himself in the back of beyond, but in fact has to start rebuilding his life.

If you like Mo Hayder you'll love THE CHEMISTRY OF DEATH. And the twist in the tail is the kind guaranteed to make you squawk loudly should any film or TV company decide to make a version of what would be a sure-fire hit.

Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, February 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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