1800 degrees Fahrenheit

Author : Simon Beckett
Title : Written In Bone
Published : 07/04/2008
Pages : 496
Genre : Crime Fiction
Publisher : Transworld Publishers Ltd       

     As a favour to a colleague, Dr David Hunter is on the remote Hebridean island of Runa to inspect a grisly discovery. He's familiar with death in all its guises but is shocked by what he finds: a body, incinerated but for the feet and a single hand. It appears to be a textbook case of spontaneous human combustion. The local police are certain it's an accidental death, but Hunter is not convinced. Examining the scorched remains, he finds evidence that this was no accident; this was murder.
And as the isolated community considers the enormity of Hunter's findings, a catastrophic storm hits the island. The power goes down, communication with the outside world ceases...and the killing begins in.

     I read the first in this series awhile back and enjoyed it greatly an interesting mix of crime and medical knowhow. I'm slightly ashamed to admit but it took some time for me to get to the next book. I guess this stems from to many books and not enough time. A problem I think all avid readers suffer from. So with hunter trying his best to live a normal life he gets dragged back into the world of criminal anthropology as a favour. Much to the annoyance of his girlfriend he is dragged up to the Hebrides to take a look at a body. While the locals think is was an accident the police want to be sure that the body they found burnt beyond all recognition was that of an accident.

     In the first of these books Hunter has to deal with a series of murders in a small village in rural England. Some how the author has managed to surpass himself in finding an even smaller community to set this story in. And  I didn't think that was possible but this proves me wrong. As with most of these islands in the north of Scotland there is a balance of those who have lived there their whole lives and the new comers. Who no matter if they've been there a week or thirty years will always be the newcomers. It adds to the level of distrust between the characters also making Hunters life more difficult in solving the case. If these people cant trust each other who is he to know how he can talk to. The local cops are trying there best but this is not the sort of crimes they are use to dealing with. Hunter works on a mix of intuition and his knowledge of anthropology to solve cases. I suppose you could call him an experiment that took a copper and a medical examiner and combined hem in a test tube to make the perfect crime solving detective.  But as with all these things you have to add in the human element. So yes our hero is fallible and does make mistakes. Some very stupid like lets take a midnight walk across wild terrain with out a torch.  Not completely his fault but still .  I think this all adds up to make him a more likable person. If not he would be far to much like Sherlock and while I do love that character he can be a complete arse at time especially when dealing with people.

     Beckett is very good at dealing with small locations and the type of people who chose to live there. This is shown far better in this novel than the first which still did it very well. The isolation of a small island take a special kind of person to deal with. The harsh and forbidding island can create a strong bond between the people who chose to live there. What the author has chosen to do here is rip that apart. The interactions between these people only strengthened my suspensions as I made my way through. With each revelation of a secret I felt my self with whiplash as to who I thought had committed these terrible crime. As for the murder scenes they where described in all there gruesome detail. The author does not shy away from how thee people where killed adding in medical details as to there exact causes of death. I suppose in this day and age you cant get away with just saying they where bashed in the head. As a thriller the pace keeps up from the moment Hunter sets foot on the island. No one was beyond suspension and at the same time I felt as if any of these people could be killed of at any moment. Over all I think this book will appeal to most average readers of crime novels. If you are looking for something a bit more complex then maybe not. But I still found it a good read.

     When I started this book I was curious to see if it would live up to the first novel in the series. For me I think I preferred the first book. Which is not to say that there is anything particularly wrong with this one. It has a solid mystery and enough suspect to keep you going till the end. It just I was hopping for a little more. I'm sure I will come around to the next book soon enough and I will just have to see how that goes . I would like to point out that hardly any time is given to the events of the first book so if you chose to give this one ago you don't have to worry on that front.