Doctor Death

First published in 2010, this is Kaaberøl's (coauthor, The Boy in the Suitcase) first Madeline Karno mystery. The title may be a trifle misleading as the doctor of death—the late 19th-century equivalent of a coroner—is not the prime character here. Instead, young Maddie's role as assistant to her pathologist father is intensified when he is temporarily sidelined with a broken leg and arm. In this time period autopsies are socially and ethically uncomfortable, but a series of murders requires studies of bacteria and the dead to solve them. Madeline is sent to probe secrets behind convent walls, inside hidden diaries and Bibles, and within a historical tradition of raising wolves. The story focuses both on the apparently loosely connected deaths and Madeline's desires to avoid the limited options traditionally available to women. A bit slow at times but well read by Nicola Barber.