Coming to the Edge
Reading Dr McKay’s book reminded me of Kathy Reichs series about Temperance Brennan. Like Tempe, Dick Meyer is a civilian expert and, like Tempe, he gets much deeper into the investigation — and associated trouble — than might be considered entirely plausible. The difference is that Brennan, like Reichs, is a forensic anthropologist while Meyer, like McKay, is a psychologist who writes self-help books.
He and his new friend, retired Scotland Yard detective Ian MacLennan, get drafted to help Arizona police solve a mystery. Women have begun to go missing; no trace of them but boxes turn up with blood samples, personal effects and ominous sounding notes. All that is missing are the bodies, hence the title. I have to say that I wasn’t too far into the book before I was able to take a fairly accurate guess at what was going on although I didn’t predict all the twists and turns.
It wasn’t badly written but neither did I find it so gripping that I am impatiently waiting for a sequel (although I would be intrigued to see if Dr McKay could come up with a rationale for his hero to get involved in police work again without stretching the rationale even thinner). I think I could stretch to /5 for this one; if my guarded review hasn’t put you off then the chances are you may enjoy it.