The Chosen Dead by M R Hall

The Chosen Dead (2013) is the fifth and latest excellent Coroner Jenny Cooper series.

Hardback:

"I've already told you, Mrs Cooper.  I don't believe in conspiracies."

"But you'll let me know what you find."

He nodded, and then, with all the effort of contradicting beliefs to which he had held fast for years, said, "Do you think I'm in any danger?"

"I don't know how to answer that question," Jenny said.

When Bristol Coroner Jenny Cooper investigates the fatal plunge of a man from a motorway bridge, she little suspects that it has any connection with the sudden death of a friend's thirteen-year-old daughter from a deadly strain of meningitis.

But as Jenny pieces together the dead man's last days, she's drawn into a mystery whose dark ripples stretch across continents and back through decades.

In an investigation which will take her into the sinister realms of unbridled human ambition and corrupt scientific endeavour, Jenny is soon forced to risk the love and lives of those closest to her, as a deadly race to uncover the truth begins.

About the author:  M R Hall is a screenwriter, producer and former criminal barrister.  The Flight (2012) is the fourth novel in his excellent Jenny Cooper series, following Gold Dagger-shortlisted debut The Coroner, The Disappeared and The Redeemed.  Educated at Hereford Cathedral School and Worcester College, Oxford, he lives in Monmouthshire with his wife and two sons.  Aside from writing, his main passion is the preservation and planting of woodland.  In his spare moments, he is mostly to be found among trees.

Rating:  5/5