Published in paperback by Bantam on 9th April 2007 at £6.99After just thirty seconds, your skin begins to crawl.After a minute, your heart is in your mouth.by Simon Beckett Published in paperback by Bantam on 9th April 2007 at £6.99‘Excellent... plotted and written with panache, with high marks for characterisation and shock value...an absorbing, scary tale’ – THE TIMES‘A cool talent... and evokes a creeping atmosphere of dread’ – THE GUARDIAN
‘The best thriller I’ve read all year...fast-paced, fascinating and heart-stoppingly exciting’ – Tess Gerritsen
Simon Beckett explores new territory in the serial killer genre as the first British author to feature as his central character a forensic anthropologist, a field of forensic science which is only just finding its feet in the UK.
David Hunter is a former forensic specialist reluctantly forced to confront his demons and use his skills to track down a twisted killer terrorising an isolated rural community. Grief-stricken after the death of his wife and daughter, he turns his back on his high-profile career to work as a doctor in an isolated Norfolk village.
His attempts to find peace are shattered with the discovery of a woman’s mutilated body. Knowing a psychopath is stalking the tiny community, Hunter reluctantly agrees to use his skills to help find him. But when another woman goes missing, plunging the village into a maelstrom of fear and suspicion, he realises all his knowledge may not be enough to catch the killer – or save the woman he loves.
Simon Beckett describes his own experiences at The Body Farm in Tennessee, the home of forensic anthropology: “In 2002 I went to Knoxville, Tennessee to write an article for a national newspaper on the National Forensic Academy. The Academy had only recently opened, offering intensive – and exceptionally realistic – forensic training for US police officers and crime scene investigators.
To recreate a fire scene they would burn down a real house that was scheduled for demolition. For blood spatter analysis they would use expired human blood from a blood bank. And to learn how to carry out a body recovery, they went to the only place in the world where they could simulate the process with real human cadavers – The Body Farm.
The Outdoor Anthropology Research Facility, to give it its full title, was founded in the early 1980s by forensic anthropologist Dr. William Bass. His aim was to create a dedicated facility where the process of decay and decomposition could be investigated, and more accurate methods found of determining the all-importanttime-since-death – a vital tool in any murder investigation. The Chemistry Of Death