The Scent of Death

Once a busy hospital, St Jude’s now stands derelict, awaiting demolition. When a partially mummified corpse is found in the building’s loft, forensics expert Dr David Hunter is called in to investigate. He identifies the body as a pregnant young women, but is unable to determine how long the body has been there. Then part of the attic floor collapses, revealing another of the hospital’s secrets: a bricked-up chamber with beds inside. Some of them still occupied…

Abandoned buildings fascinate me. There is something inherently creepy about a place once teeming with human life, left to rot and be reclaimed by nature. And an abandoned hospital, once a place all about healing, seems exceptionally chilling.

So the setting of this book intrigued me from the beginning, with David Hunter called to investigate a corpse discovered during the demolition process. But when a sealed-off room containing further bodies is discovered - I was utterly gripped.

At its heart, this book is a fairly standard forensics thriller. As with all novels dealing with forensics, there are some rather graphic descriptions of the state of the corpses, which may make the squeamish flinch. However, there is so much more to this book than the forensics side of things. Protagonist David Hunter is a complex yet ultimately likeable hero, dealing with his own demons and personal trauma.

The descriptive prose is outstanding, and as you follow their journey you will almost see the paint flaking off the walls of the empty wards, and the rusty frames of the abandoned beds.

And finally, the narrative threads woven throughout the story come together in an explosive and surprising ending.

This novel is a must-read for fans of forensic thrillers, and police procedurals, and anyone with a fascination for abandoned buildings should give it a read as well.