And sometimes, in their way, she believes they talk back.Ī lot of the book is a showcase to display Cassie Raven’s personality and reveal her backstory. She treats the dead in her care with respect. She knows how to support grieving family members as they identify their dead. She’s good at noticing details a harassed or inexperienced coroner might miss. What does she have going for her? An engaging blend of empathy, compassion, curiosity and a tendency towards rebellion. She dyes her hair bright colours and wears facial piercings. She’s from an immigrant Polish family, was raised by her gran, left home in her teens and lived in a squat. She’s bright but dropped out of school and has no degree. She’s in Camden Town, a slightly bohemian, slightly disreputable, yet to be gentrified part of London, not some prestigious Institute in a rich State on America’s eastern seaboard. She’s a mortuary assistant, not a Medical Examiner. Cassie Raven isn’t Kay Scarpetta or Temperance Brennan – high-profile, rich, preppy MEs with lots of letters after their names. Some of that sense of hope comes from the fact that ‘Body Language’ isn’t a typical forensics lab thriller. If ‘Body Language’ had a scent, it would be formaldehyde, decomp and tears and yet, as I read it, my main reaction was to feel uplifted and hopeful. Much of the novel was spent with our main protagonist, Cassie Raven, slicing up dead bodies in an unglamorous morgue and most of the rest was spent trying to track down a disturbingly cold-blooded killer. The odd thing is that, from a content point of view, ‘Body Language’ shouldn’t have been a book that made me smile and feel better about the world. I’m already looking forward to the next one’. I’m glad it’s the first book in a series.

At the end of the book, I thought, ‘I enjoyed that. It swept me along, made me smile, and piqued my curiosity enough that I found myself looking forward to returning to it whenever I had to put it aside to deal with the demands of real life. I’m not sure why I enjoyed ‘Body Language’ as much as I did.

Ak turner body language