Theresa MacLean discovers a violent murder in the Medical
Examiner’s office. One of the deskmen has been beaten to death and the other
one is missing. While this murder and the subsequent ones appear to be the
mystery, these deaths are solved, and a ten-year-old closed murder
case replaces
them as the real mystery. In the interim, Theresa is kidnapped and trapped in a
car trunk while her assailant is himself murdered. Along the way, after a slow start, a steady stream of violence and plot
twists keeps the story moving until Theresa unravels the mystery.
Unfortunately, a long list of innocent corpses remains after the unmasking of
the single guilty party who started it all.
Much of the plot depends on the failure or ineffectiveness of modern technology. The surveillance cameras do
not record. A cell phone cannot be traced. DNA for the fetus is lost.
Fingernail scrapings only contain the victim’s DNA. One suspect has someone
else’s fingerprints in the personnel file. Those fingerprints cannot be traced.
A key piece of evidence (a valuable ring) is lost and does not appear in the crime scene photos. Many of the important
records are not computerized, requiring searching through old ledgers. Even a car trunk doesn’t have the ubiquitous internal release.
The general anti-technology tone is summed up, “The computer is a
tool to narrow down possibilities and point us in the right direction. But if
we’re already pointed in a direction, then there’s no need to go through the
extra and pointless work involving the computer.”
Theresa is responsible for trace analysis, but she follows up on
all clues regardless. She is attacked by several men, all characterized as
being larger and stronger than she is. She defends herself with whatever is at
hand: a steak knife, a
glass jar. For the most part, she
does not need to be rescued. She might appear even stronger if she didn’t periodically turn into a teenage girl
with a crush.
Close to the Bone by Lisa Black is a forensic mystery with a high
body count that depends more on detective work than forensics.
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