Scattered Graves

Interesting forensic series..., January 25, 2010

This sixth in the series is another entertaining and educational read. The author, pedigreed herself, has written a character who is smart and spunky. Diane Fallon is the director of a museum of natural history (RiverTrail) and also heads another division housed in the same large building - a crime lab that has everything from an osteology laboratory (her own specialty) to DNA analysis. In addition to being an expert in many of the forensic sciences, she is a caver and is physically fit as well. This happens to be a good thing for Diane because she is nearly murdered, kidnapped, or imprisoned in every novel! Despite all the bruises and injuries she suffers as she escapes these attempts on her life, she usually manages to help the FBI or the local police solve the mystery.

In this investigation, Diane deals with a corrupt city government determined to take away her crime lab and a complicated identity theft scheme involving computer programmers and hackers -- and murders of course. Lots of murders including another attempt on Diane's life. This book in the series wasn't as interesting as some of the others have been.

Because of the combination of the natural history museum and the crime lab, the reader learns many interesting facts about different subjects in each book. The one thing that does irritate me about Diane is that she is a bit of a "know it all" and even manages to lecture her staff about John Locke's social contract.

Although these are not what I consider heart stopping, suspenseful thrillers, I think most readers will enjoy the science and also develop a fondness for Diane and the other recurring characters in this series and won't want to miss this one. I'm looking forward to Dust to Dust (Diane Fallon Forensic Investigation, No. 7)

I also think it's a series that should be read in order, so start with One Grave Too Many (Diane Fallon Forensic Investigation, No. 1) so you can get the full background on Diane Fallon and how all this came about.