03-Whispers of the Dead

In America to escape London and the violence that nearly killed him, forensics expert David Hunter has returned to the research facility where he trained - the Body Farm in Tennessee. He needs to know whether he's still up to the job of confronting death in all its strange and terrible forms. So when his former mentor asks him to accompany him to a crime scene, he agrees. He'll be there as an observer, so what could possibly go wrong?

But even he is unprepared for what awaits them in the remote cabin out in the woods. The victim has been bound and tortured, the body decomposed beyond recognition. Although fingerprints seem to identify the killer, Hunter is uneasy: nothing is quite as it should be.

Then a second body is found. And it becomes clear that the investigating team faces a nightmare of deception and misdirection. Hunter knows they're dealing with a killer who is dangerously familiar with the intricacies of forensics. As the death toll rises and tensions mount, he is pushed deeper into the heart of a desperate manhunt. But has he met his match? This time is David Hunter on the trail of a maniac who simply cannot be stopped?

Shocking, cunning and heart-stoppingly exciting, Whispers of the Dead is a crime thriller of the highest order from a No. 1 international bestselling storyteller. Simon Beckett is the best selling author of three thrillers featuring forensics expert Dr David Hunter - The Chemistry of Death, Written in Bone and now Whispers of the Dead. In 2002, he went on an assignment for the Daily Telegraph Magazine to Tennessee's world-famous Anthropological Research Facility, the Body Farm. As well as providing the inspiration for David Hunter, what he saw and learned there, together with his meticulous approach to research, helps make his novels so frighteningly authentic.