WHISPERS OF THE DEAD is Simon Beckett’s third novel featuring British forensic anthropologist Dr. David Hunter, following THE CHEMISTRY OF DEATH and WRITTEN IN BONE. But rather than showing greater strength and confidence, Beckett seems to have instead retreated to several well-worn techniques and devices, resulting in a sadly unsatisfying and hollow forensic mystery.
Still mourning the death of his wife and child, and now recovering from a near-fatal knife stabbing during his last case, Hunter decides to leave his native London and accepts an invitation from his former mentor to visit the Outdoor Anthropology Research Facility in Knoxville, Tenn., more commonly known as The Body Farm, where Hunter trained early in his career.
But shortly after his arrival, he is asked to accompany the investigation of a dead body found in a cabin in the nearby hills. It appears to be a murder by several stab wounds, but the examination of the corpse produces several questions. Chief among them is the fact that the body is in a state of decomposition at odds with the time the victim rented and occupied the cabin. Also, a fingerprint found on a metal film canister near the body belongs to a man dead and buried some time ago. But when the examiners exhume the coffin from the nearby cemetery, they discover that the body inside is not the man presumed buried.
As more similar complications pile up, the examiners and police investigators conclude that they are on the trail of a serial killer. But as Hunter and his fellow forensic experts examine the resulting bodies, they conclude that the killer is surprisingly knowledgeable about body forensics, and very possibly targeting members of the facility as his next victims.
The first problem in this third installment is Hunter himself. Beckett weighs him down with so much self-doubt and reluctance that we quickly lose interest in him and almost wish he would throw it in and return to London, as he frequently proposes. The other characters are mostly one-note players — such as the conceited criminal personality profiler and the hotheaded lead police investigator — with little depth and function other than to provide additional facts.
While the details and revelations of the forensic examinations remain fascinating, Beckett brings little new or different to the construction of the mystery. Hunter’s first-person narration is perfunctory with only occasional personal insights, and mostly related to his previous brush with near-death. Then Beckett resorts to the tired technique of shifting to the killer’s point-of-view as he addresses himself (“Your first one was a woman …”). The author tries to liven things up with numerous decoys and red herrings, all provided by the killer (and commented upon in self-directed narration), but they end up dragging the pace down.
The locations of the narrative, oddly enough, are often more interesting than the mystery itself. This is especially true of The Body Farm and its various techniques demonstrating how the human form decomposes when exposed to the elements, and other similar ways a dead body provides clues to the trained examiner.
Hunter returns to London at the novel’s conclusion, and with luck, his confidence has been restored to where he can take on more interesting cases. This latest work, however, is recommended solely to forensic mystery addicts who can’t get enough of Patricia Cornwell, Katherine Reich or the various forms of CSI on TV and in novel adaptations. —Alan Cranis
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THE CHEMISTRY OF DEATH by Simon Beckett
• WRITTEN IN BONE by Simon Beckett
Related posts:
- Written in Bone
- The Chemistry of Death
- Dead or Alive
- New York Dead / Dead in the Water
- The Naming of the Dead
