Body Language – A.K. Turner – What Do I Read Now?

My thanks to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive readers for asking me to join this blog tour for Body Language by A.K. Turner published by Zaffre Books.

THE DEAD CAN TALK – WE JUST NEED TO LISTEN . . .

Camden mortuary assistant Cassie Raven has pretty much seen it all. But this is the first time she’s come face to face with someone she knew on the slab. Someone she cared about.

Geraldine Edwards, the teacher responsible for her returning to education after she got ensnared in a life of drugs. The woman who acted as a second mother to the orphaned Cassie.

Deeply intuitive and convinced that she can pick up the last thoughts of the dead, Cassie senses that there must be more to the ruling of an accidental death. With Mrs E.’s evasive son demanding the release of his mother’s body, Cassie knows that time is running out to find answers. Is her grief making her see things that aren’t there? Or is her intuition right, and there’s something more sinister to Mrs E’s death than the ME thinks? Harbouring an innate distrust of the police, Cassie sets out to investigate the death and deliver justice for the woman who saved her life.

A. K. Turner spins science into spellbinding storytelling, Val McDermid

Our Author – AK Turner

A K (aka Ali) lives in East London where she is writing more mortuary-set mysteries. Her day job is producing TV documentaries on true crime and science topics. And just for light relief she is training to be a City of London guide…

Body Language, introduces a new kind of forensic heroine – a crime-solving Goth-girl mortuary technician who talks to the dead, a character first launched in two crime shorts aired on BBC Radio 4. A K’s previous series, written under the pen name Anya Lipska, starred a London-based Polish fixer who’s happy to crack heads to solve crimes – which saw her being selected for Val McDermid‘s prestigious New Blood Panel at Harrogate Crime Festival in 2012.

This book is great. End of. Its got a array of characters, some alive – some dead. The fascinatingly by the book DS Phyllida Flyte is the chalk to the cheese of Cassie Raven. And its them that propel the story along because, they speak to mortuary assistant – Cassie Raven. She has a way of hearing them, and sometimes solve how they died, if its not obvious of course.

Based around the Camden area of London, there’s a strong sense of place, you know you could take a walk down by the canal and see exactly what Cassie does in the book. The lock area is thriving and the market teaming with activity.

Cassie is a wayward soul, she was orphaned at a young age by her parents dying in a car accident. Brought up by her ‘Babcia’ – Grandmother – she had the correct guidance, but couldn’t settle, she felt confined and so with her then boyfriend ended up living in a squat and living a nomadic life for a while, until she has a chance meeting with Mrs Edwards – a science tutor and its due to her convincing Cassie that she should enrol in college and learn new skills, that she now has her dream job, yes Cassie loves working with the dead, solving how they died. She finds they are much easier to deal with than the living, who she struggles to connect with.

But when Mrs Edwards turns up in a body bag, Cassie takes it upon her self to solve what she can’t leave unsolved. Mrs E wasn’t ill, or old, she had just retired and was as far as Cassie was aware, ok. They had a falling out and feels this is not as simple as it seems. Especially when Mrs E talks to her.

Is Mrs E’s son Owen involved?

Cassie uses her skills and connections to deduce and delay the inevitable, this involves some tricky situations and leads Cassie into new territory.

Well researched and anatomically correct means this is a fast paced but also gentle thriller, the way that Cassie is portrayed being tattoed and pierced, doesn’t mean she doesn’t care and this is what makes Cassie stand out and become real, she has a heart and this can sometimes rule her head.

I really enjoyed Body Language, and can’t wait for the next instalment. I see a busy and interesting future for Cassie Raven.

For fans of Elly Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway series and Kathy Reichs’ Temperance Brennan comes a new heroine for forensic medicine.

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