Monday, November 05, 2007

While I’m waiting for the buckwheat to sprout so I can make raw pizza (should make the dough tomorrow night) I thought I would post some of the books I’ve been doing on audio the last week…

The synopsis for the books comes from www.waterstones.com, so lets start off with the first book…



Book of the Dead
By Patricia Cornwell
ISBN:
9780316724234 (Book)
ISBN: 9781405502078 (C.D)

Synopsis
The 'Book of the Dead' is the morgue log, the ledger in which all cases are entered by hand. For Kay Scarpetta, however, it is about to have a new meaning. Fresh from her bruising battle with a psychopath in Florida, Scarpetta decides it's time for a change of pace. Moving to the historic city of Charleston, South Carolina, she opens a unique private forensic pathology practice, one in which she and her colleagues offer expert crime scene investigation and autopsies to communities lacking local access to competent death investigation and modern technology. It seems like an ideal situation, until the murders and other violent deaths begin. A woman is ritualistically murdered in her multi-million-dollar beach home. The body of an abused young boy is found dumped in a desolate marsh. A sixteen-year-old tennis star is found nude and mutilated near Piazza Navona in Rome. Scarpetta has dealt with many brutal and unusual crimes before, but never a string of them as baffling, or as terrifying, as the ones before her now. Before she is through, that book of the dead will contain many names? And the pen may be poised to write her own. The first name in forensics. The last name in suspense. Once again, Patricia Cornwell proves her exceptional ability to entertain and enthrall.

I’m still only half way through this book and its only my second crime book ever, I’m not sure if I’m a big fan but I’m enjoying them enough to keep on listening to them.

So I should tell you about the first crime book I listened to last week…



Bones to Ashes
By Kathy Reichs
ISBN:
9780434014620 (Book)
ISBN: 9781846571213 (C.D)

Synopsis
Under the microscope, the outer bone surface is a moonscape of craters...'Preliminary diagnosis?' 'Deformity of the bone. Maybe. Cortical destruction on a metacarpal. Maybe. Localized infection? Systemic disease process? Postmortem destruction, either purposeful or natural? A combination of the above? I don't have a diagnosis...' The skeleton is that of a young girl, no more than fourteen years old - and forensic anthropologist Dr Temperance Brennan is struggling to keep her emotions in check. Coroner Jean Bradette is being evasive, insisting the bones are ancient and of no interest. But it doesn't quite add up, and a frustrated Tempe is convinced that Bradette is hiding something... It's not Tempe's case; she's overwhelmed with more urgent work in the lab... But the nagging in her subconscious won't let up. A memory triggered, deep in her hindbrain - the disappearance of a childhood friend; no warning, no explanation... Detective Andrew Ryan is working a series of parallel cases, and requires Tempe's forensic expertise. Three missing persons, three unidentified bodies - all female, all early- to mid-teens... Could there be a serial killer at work? Was Bradette's skeleton another in this tragic line of young victims? Or is Tempe over-reacting, making connections where none exist? Can she and Ryan put their personal tensions aside, and stop the killer before another young girl falls prey? Working on instinct, Tempe takes matters into her own hands. But she couldn't have predicted where this case would lead, or the horrors it would eventually uncover... Can Tempe maintain a professional distance as the past catches up with her in this, her most deeply personal case yet?



You may know Temperance Brennan from the T.V series 'Bones' with David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel if you haven’t seen it yet you should give it a go. 

As for Ashes to Bones I enjoyed it loads but for the annoying fact that a lot of the dialog is in French and only half of it is translated into English by the narrator, the rest is left for effect. After you get over that it was a good strong story and well worth listening to it.

Bear. X

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