(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

The museum of Anatomy and Pathology in St Benjamin’s Medical School is the greatest of its kind.
Any death occurring within its walls would have created ripples within the academic world, but the death of Nikki Exner is far from being ordinary.
Raped, and then grotesquely executed, her theatrical murder horrifies everyone.
John Eisenmenger, a former forensic pathologist, finds himself dragged unwillingly into the Exner case, despite his desire to forget the haunting past of his professional life.
He suffers awful flashbacks and his partner Marie feels the strain as the investigation takes him further away from her.
Full of rage she threatens him in a manner he initially thinks is bizarre, until she explodes when he least expects it...
The police have fingered a suspect for the murder but Eisenmenger thinks they are wrong.
The results of his second autopsy just don’t add up to the findings of the first.
Teaming up with solicitor Helena Flemming — who has her own personal reasons for wanting to prove the police wrong — Eisenmenger sets out to discover what really did happen to Nikki Exner.
His suspicions are confirmed as evidence slowly comes to light, but Police officer Beverly Wharton is hell bent on ensuring her initial assessment of the crime is not questioned.
Despite Wharton’s panic, both Eisenmenger and Flemming persevere to uncover the truth, as disturbing as that truth might be.
They find there is much more at stake than uncovering the identity of a murderer.
There are scores to be settled, demons to be exorcised and, not least, vengeance to be had.

Having read some reviews prior to selecting this book to read, I was somewhat excited about it. However, although the writing was, at times, quite good, I just got weighed down with excessive characters - most who have "secrets", arcane words from the medical field and there were some sub-plots that I think were completely unnecessary - all they did was drive me further away from the actual plot...and that annoyed me.

What should have been a really good story was, for me, weighed down by trying to achieve too much in the first book of a series.


Paul
ARH