Simon Beckett - Whispers Of The Dead

Recuperating from a near-fatal attack, forensic anthropologist David Hunter has returned to the renowned research facility where he first trained - the Body Farm in Tennessee. Still bearing physical and emotional scars, he hopes the trip will hone his old skills and restore his shattered confidence.

So when his former mentor invites him to assist on a murder investigation, he agrees. After all, he's simply there as an observer - what could possibly go wrong?

But even Hunter is unprepared by the gruesome nature of the killing. The victim has been bound and tortured, and the body has decomposed beyond recognition - far more so than it should have. Fingerprints at the scene appear to identify the killer; however Hunter is convinced that nothing is quite as it seems.

Then a second body is found, and suddenly the team are plunged into a nightmare of deception and misdirection, in pursuit of a macabre serial killer whose forensic knowledge seems disturbingly familiar. As the death toll rises and Hunter finds he has enemies even within the investigation, he begins to fear that they might be on the trail of a maniac who simply cannot be stopped... (Description taken from author's webpage).

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Anthropologist David Hunter has come a long way since he was stabbed by Grace Strachan. With the scars that remind him from the outside, he deals with the aftermath of knowing a killer is on the loose who might or might not come back to him at any time. Separated from his girlfriend Jenny he searches for a sense in his life and if he still is any good in his job. He accepts the invitation by his old mentor Tom Lieberman, head of the unique, world famous Body Farm in Knoxville, Tennessee, to study on some dead bodies.

Tom tries to give David a way back into his old occupation and motivates him to help in a gruesome new case: a decaying body was found in a cabin, stabbed to a table, covered with maggots the scene offers a shocking picture. Despite the heat coming from a red glowing heater directly next to the dead body the maggots stages of development don't match the timeframe when the cabin was rented. The maggots seem to be much older than they should be and the only evidence leads to someone who died six month earlier.
When Tom suffers from a heart attack leaving him in intensive care, David wonders if the killer deliberately left conflicting evidence to mock the anthropologist and was planning to get to him from the beginning.
But with Tom in the hospital and the killer's plan failed, his narcissism might bring him to look for another appealing target.

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Whispers of the Dead or Leichenblaesse, the German edition I've read, is the third installment surrounding David Hunter, following The Chemistry of Death and Written in Bone
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Getting to know the author it is easily expectable that his approach to forensic studies is easily bound into the plot making it very understandable. The gruesome plot, twists and sudden developments the book is a very exciting read, as long as you don't read the German edition. I could vent for hours about the boring translation that is as far from British and American colloquial language as possible. In the end I found myself translating into English and got the tension I was waiting for.

In this third novel David Hunter seems more approachable as in the previous novels and the reader gets a more detailed sense of his personality.
For myself I could have been better off to not read the included view of the killer that made me guess the killer's identity way too early.

Overall I feel sad for the German readers. They really should consider reading the book in English. What I have found on excerpts, the book reads itself way better in its original language.
You just can't compare the dry German explanation of a decaying body with the 'colorful' explanation in English. :-)

Overall, it's the best novel in the series and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in forensics, a gruesome plot and the strength to take in one dead body after the other.

Rating:
Visit Simon Beckett.

American Edition
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Delacorte Press (May 19, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0385340060
ISBN-13: 978-0385340069

German Edition
Gebundene Ausgabe: 416 Seiten
Verlag: WUNDERLICH VLG.; Auflage: 5 (16. Januar 2009)
Sprache: Deutsch
ISBN-10: 3805208669
ISBN-13: 978-3805208666

Simon Beckett - Written In Bone

Dr. David Hunter should be in London with the woman he loves and a past he can't quite shake. Instead, as a favor to a beleaguered cop, Hunter travels to a remote island in the Outer Hebrides to inspect a baffling set of remains.
A forensic anthropologist, Hunter has seen bodies destroyed by all forms of violence, but even he is surprised at what he finds: human remains burned behind recognition - all within the confines of an otherwise undamaged, unoccupied cottage.
Local police want to rule the death accidental. But Hunter's examination of the victim's charred skull tells him that this woman, no doubt a stranger to the close-knit island of Runa, was murdered by someone nearby.

Within days, two more people have been killed. Hunter's job is to coax the dead into telling their stories - but now that he's beginning to hear them, he is staggered by the truth. Working with only the barest of clues, he peels back the layers of mysteries past and present, exposing the tangle of secrets at the heart of this strange community - from the deceptions of a wealthy couple to the bitterness of an ex-cop and the secrets of a lonely single mother - as a tale of rage and perversion comes full circle... then explodes in a series of violent acts and shocking twists.

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I remember reading The Chemistry of Death, the first installment surrounding Dr. David Hunter and that I was impressed at how good Simon Beckett researched and explained the facts he was writing about, all the while binding them easily into the books plot.
It is the same with Written In Bone. Easy understandable descriptions bound into the killings that are happening on a remote island.

Dr. David Hunter is called to the remote island of Runa, where a burnt body was found in a cabin.
Figuring the skull of the victim has been smashed, he announces the death as a murder but it is too late to call for reinforcement. The island is engulfed in a storm that eventually shuts it off from all communication to the outside world.
Bound to work with ex-cop Brody and the islands grumpy sergeant Fraser he secures what he can before the storm destroys the small cabin, not knowing that this is just a beginning of a chain reaction threatening his own life.
The stored remains of the victim, the already destroyed cabin and the only boat with a satellite phone on board are purposely destroyed. The lives of a deputy and a noisy reporter-girl taken and a murderer on the loose the rural community is in danger, not knowing what the killers goal might be. Is it "just" a random intruder or is it someone deeply bound into the community out on a killing spree for whatever reason ?

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With twists, turns and a few surprises Beckett kept me reading, enjoying his explanations in forensic anthropology. The book reminds me a bit of P. D. James' The Lighthouse without all the private stuff going on around the main character, Hunter.
Of course we hear a bit of his struggles with his girlfriend Jenny and his constant absence in their relationship but it isn't overwhelmingly boring.
I got the sense that Beckett focuses more on the forensic research instead of building the character or he does so in a slowly way not knowing yet in which way his character is going to evolve with time.
So he doesn't create a huge attachment to his character which might be a plus but also a negative for some readers. For me it was completely fine.

The next novel surrounding Dr. Hunter is announced to be published in May, 2009 under the name Whispers Of The Dead.

Rating:
Visit Simon Beckett.

Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Delacorte Press (September 25, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0385340052
ISBN-13: 978-0385340052