Older readers may be familiar with the Had I But Known (HIBK) school of mystery writing, roundly castigated by many but still a school that sold millions of books from popular authors like Mary Roberts Rinehart and Mignon Eberhart. The school gets its name from the almost infuriating first-person statements of the protagonists, where a chapter would often end with some statement like, “Had I but known then what was to occur, I would never have left my pistol in plain sight.”
While this school fell out of favor in the ’70s and ’80s, it seems to have morphed into a somewhat different style: the Had I Only Acted Appropriately (HIOAA) school of mystery writing, equally infuriating and equally popular. One gets very tired of reading mysteries in which a character withholds vital evidence from the one person that can possibly save them, all because of some cockamamie excuse that sounds stupid on the page, is very dangerous within the story, and would be almost always be lethal in real life. I’m afraid this is the problem with Simon Beckett’s THE CHEMISTRY OF DEATH.
The book has an excellent premise: Former forensic investigator David Hunter moves away from urban London to a small backwater town in order to forget the loss of his wife and child. He is no longer interested in forensics, hoping to simply be a general practitioner. But a bizarre torture murder occurs in the sleepy town and Hunter, much against his will, is drawn into the investigation. The strength of the book can be found in the forensic details, as Beckett discusses insect infestation and putrefaction with the usual prurient glee one expects to find in these sadistic serial killer romps, but at least he’s on solid – and interesting – scientific ground.
Where the story unravels is in Hunter’s odd responses to some of the action. Sometimes he doesn’t tell the investigating police important information because he’s worried he’ll look a fool, sometimes he runs off half-cocked to confront the very man he suspects and without proper backup, or indeed, a rational plan. Sure, you can chalk all this up to a tense emotional state on the part of Hunter, and based on the circumstances, is completely believable. But it becomes frustrating to see the man almost actively antagonize the police when, as he should well know, they are doing their job and doing it well. At one point, Hunter attempts to bully a small vigilante force who are, after all, trying to defend their town, but one can’t blame them for thinking he’s a suspect when he continues to act the boor.
There is definitely something here. Beckett is a smooth writer and whips the story along at a decent pace. He doesn’t seem to have left himself room for a sequel, at least not in this locale, and that’s a shame because the location is almost more interesting than the main character. The author also has a good eye for scientific detail. But if you really like forensics you might be better off going non-fiction and picking up M. Lee Goff’s A FLY FOR THE PROSECUTION: HOW INSECT EVIDENCE HELPS SOLVE CRIMES, which tells almost as interesting a tale, without the odd behaviors. –Mark Rose
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