First Cut by Judy Melinek and T.J. Mitchell

Just zipped through this one and I truly hope it is the debut of a new series featuring Dr. Jessie Teska. It's a crime thriller whose protagonist is a spunky Polish medical examiner/forensic pathologist in the city of San Fransisco. The plot is complicated and the details are incredible as would be expected since the author is actually a medical examiner who wrote a memoir, "Working Stiff: Two Yeears, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner" along with her husband, T.J. Mitchell. I loved that book and this happens to be her first fiction novel. If you love medical thrillers, you won't be disappointed!

Jessie has left her job in LA under a bit of a cloud and is hired on at the San Francisco Office of Chef Medical Examiner. It's a far cry from the state-of-the-art facility that she'd worked in LA, but needs must and she jumps right in as assistant medical examiner dealing with sudden, violent, and unexpected deaths. She lives in a converted cable car in the city famed for the Golden Gate Bridge and rued for the near constant fog.  Her first call-out takes her to the Tenderloin with her boss, Dr. Michael Stone, and they find a dead man who was shot multiple times after attempting to steal a computer. Jessie volunteers to do the autopsy and finds a fragment of the computer's serial number embedded in his tissue. The next day brings a new case -- a mutilated woman found in a hotel room -- her body was cut open to retrieve drug packets that she'd swallowed. Then, another, a young woman is discovered dead in her home -- a probable accidental drug overdose. This woman had died from an injection of "Soul Sister" a potent mix of heroin and fentanyl and Jessica believes that there is foul play involved but her bosses want her to close the case.  There's something going on here that seems to tie these 3 separate deaths together. Add in a bitcoin scheme and this all turns into a very complex investigation involving some very powerful people. NO SPOILERS.

I really enjoyed this and hope that there will be more books with this main character and her job. I like Jessie and her enthusiasm for her job. I've never been to San Francisco, but I liked all the descriptions about the setting. My favorite parts, however, were all the medical details and I simply can't get enough of those. I find the whole subject quite fascinating and the the cases wholly believable. More, please.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin for this e-book ARC to read, review and recommend.

This is, I hope, the first in a new series.

Genre - crime thriller