Mortal Remains: A Medical Thriller

Ballantine Books, 2004. Paperback. Good. In a small upstate New York town, an idyllic lake yields a ghastly discover y when the skeletal remains of a young woman missing for twenty-seven years are pulled from the icy depths-along with unmistakable evidence of her mur der. Suddenly, the long-dormant case of Kelly McShane Braden's mysterious d isappearance is reactivated. And for two devastated men, dark emotions and disturbing secrets will also rise to the surface. For local coroner Dr. Mark Roper, the murder is more than just a grim inter ruption of his general practice in sleepy Hampton Junction. Kelly Braden ha d been a surrogate sister. When the police insist the trail of Kelly's disa ppearance is too cold to pick up again, he vows to find the missing pieces of the past that will lead him to a killer. Because that's what cracks cold cases: "One guy who can't get it out of his head." Yet Mark isn't the only one with Kelly's murder on his mind. Dr. Earl Garne t, chief of staff at Buffalo's St. Paul's Hospital, was once Kelly's secret lover . . . and would-be savior. Until his plans to rescue her from an abu sive marriage were cut short by her vanishing. Now, as the last person to s ee Kelly alive, he's in danger of becoming the prime suspect, unless he can unmask the murderer first. But neither man knows about the twisted chain of lies and corruption that l ed to Kelly's death-or the shocking revelations that were meant to go with her to a watery grave. And the harder they push for answers, the easier the y make it for their lethal quarry to zero in on them-and push back with dea dly force. With Mortal Remains, Peter Clement remains in total control of readers' nerves f.