The Restless Dead

A forensic pathologist gets mired in the deadly secrets of an English backwater village in this "tense, gripping" crime thriller (The Sunday Times).

Top forensics expert Dr. David Hunter is facing an uncertain future. His career hangs in the balance and his personal life has taken a turn for the worse. Then, he takes a call from Detective Inspector Lundy from the Essex force. Just up the coast from Mersea Island, a badly decomposed body has been found. The local police would welcome David's help with the recovery and identification--and they would especially like it if the body was identified as Leo Villiers.

Leo Villiers is the adult son of a prominent regional family who went missing weeks ago, and the investigators are under pressure to close the case. Villiers was allegedly having an affair with a married woman, Emma Derby, who is also missing. The theory is that the young man disposed of his lover and then killed himself. But with the hands and feet missing and the face no longer recognizable, David has his doubts about the identity of the remains. As the remote wetlands give up ever more grisly secrets, David is slowly drawn into a toxic mire of family betrayals, provincial lies, and deadly stakes.

"The Restless Dead is a deep dive into darkness. Simon Beckett's masterful storytelling and macabre forensic details make his novels utterly chilling reads." --Tess Gerritsen, author of New York Times-bestseller Harvest

Simon Beckett is the international bestselling author of the David Hunter thrillers. His books have been translated into twenty-nine languages, appeared in the Sunday Times Top 10 bestseller list, and sold more than ten million copies worldwide. A former freelance journalist who has written for the Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Independent on Sundayand the Observer, Beckett's inspiration for the first David Hunter novel came after a visit to the world-renowned Body Farm in Tennessee introduced him to the work of forensic anthropologists.

As well as co-winning the Ripper Award in 2018/19, the largest European crime prize, Beckett won the Raymond Chandler Society's 'Marlowe' Award and was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger, CWA Dagger in the Library, and Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year.

In addition to his David Hunter series, Beckett has written five standalone novels, one of which, Where There's Smoke, was adapted into a major two-part drama.