Traces: The memoir of a forensic scientist and criminal investigator

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I've long been fascinated by pioneer life, perhaps from growing up in rural SW Virginia. I'm also captivated by Boone in particular, no doubt due to the fact that an important chunk of his exploration took place all through our mountains. (In fact, the Daniel Boone Trail is noted all along the route I take whenever I go "home.") What was it like to live in those wilds at that time, both as the explorer but also as his wife—a woman who bore 10 children and spent so much time homesteading in dire and dangerous circumstances? Without him, for years at a time? Why did she put up with his long absences? How did she survive?

Luke Harding is a newly qualified forensic investigator; he is given his first case, to solve the mystery of the deaths in his school – where Luke himself is the main suspect. Luke struggles to catch the killer before he gets arrested. The story surrounding the crimes is actually pretty good- but there is too much distraction for this to be a really good book. The CME is thrown in as kind of a red herring- he has some skeletons in his closet, but we never reslove anything with him. You can feel Kay and Benton (her, what? Boyfriend? Husband? I'm not sure what he is at this point) struggling to bury their hurtful past, but no one talks about it and there is no confrontation. Some opportunities for real drama are just skated over. So far one of my favorite books of 2023! What a reading experience. As someone who loves historical fiction, this book had everything I look for. It is incredibly well researched, absorbing, and has realistic characters and stunning prose. Memorable for me was the description of the lunatics' Ball in the awful Victorian asylum; Faulks describes scenes which are almost burlesque and in so doing questions the boundaries of sanity/insanity, as he does throughout the novel.I have to say, it was "impressive" how easily Kay makes that connection to a former employee. I guess he made a bigger impression on Kay than he knew. A slow, academic but impressively ambitious novel with meticulous research into the story of 19th century psychiatry. This is a sweeping 2-generation saga, mostly set in Europe, about 2 friends who at the turn of the century pursue psychiatry (for different reasons) & become lifelong partners. Their quest is to understand madness, the evolution of the brain and what makes us human.

Patricia Cornwell sold her first novel, Postmortem, in 1990 while working as a computer analyst at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia. Postmortem, was the first bona fide forensic thriller. It paved the way for an explosion of entertainment featuring in all things forensic across film, television and literature.The ending, like some other of her works, is anti-climatic, and the plot demands so much serendipity you just have to shrug and read on. The characters undergo odd interactions and the sub-plots are just strange and misdirected. There are scenes with a woman who likes rough sex that seems to exist only so Scarpetta can examine another main character's genitals. Another situation requires a harassing physical and a lot of anger that seems to come from the author more than the character and the lesbian romance is truncated and simply present but meaningless. Sonia is divorced by her husband after his business fails (in exchange for a final loan from her father) and marries Jacques, they all move to Paris and then just as Jacques receives his doctorate are funded by the mysterious millionaire patron of a painter whose family Thomas is asked to accompany on a European trip, to set up an clinic in the alpine foothills and then over time in the mountains (by aid of a cable car) where they can practice their ideas and theories. Daisy, Mary and Oliver all join them (Oliver suffering from voices in his head – what eventually as the book progresses gets categorised as schizophrenia - eventually commits suicide). Luke and Malc discover a large number of fatalities at a hospital. He finds his long-lost father there in connection with the crimes. Luke's father is then named a suspect because of his DNA matching traces found in all of the victims' rooms.

Laurie Brett [14] as Izzy Alessi, best friend of Marie Monroe, and mother to Emma's childhood best friend Skye.

I have two more of these to read. Don't ask me why. I must have killed a dozen albatrosses in a former life.