Whispers of the Dead

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SIMON BECKETT is the bestselling author of three thrillers featuring forensics expert Dr David Hunter—The Chemistry of Death, Written in Bone and now Whispers of the Dead. In 2002, he went on an assignment for the Daily Telegraph Magazine to Tennessee’s world-famous Anthropological Research Facility, the Body Farm. As well as providing the inspiration for David Hunter, what he saw and learned there, together with his meticulous approach to research, helps make his novels so frighteningly authentic. Simon Beckett lives in Sheffield. To find out more about him and his books, visit www.simonbeckett.com.

Copyright

WHISPERS OF THE DEAD

A Delacorte Press Book / June 2009

First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Bantam Press, an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Published by Bantam Dell, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group

A Division of Random House, Inc.

New York, New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2009 by Hunter Publications Ltd.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Beckett, Simon.

Whispers of the dead / Simon Beckett.

p. cm.

eISBN: 978-0-440-33822-2

1. Forensic anthropologists—Fiction. 2. Serial murderers—Fiction. 3. English— United States—Fiction. 4. Tennessee—Fiction.

PR6052.E286 W47 2009

823/.914 22                     2009001673

www.bantamdell.com

_v3.0