San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Forensic expertise informs sharp mystery
Author duo calls on experience in Bay Area in novel worth dissecting
“Aftershock” authors Judy Melinek and T.J. Mitchell are gifted storytellers, but where the text truly shines in their latest novel is when they dissect, catalog and take apart bodies.
Taking apart the bodies isn’t a metaphor or literary trick — “Aftershock” is a mystery novel where the main character isn’t a PI or a cop, but a San Francisco medical examiner named Jessie Teska. The writers have experience in this regard, as Dr. Judy Melinek held that job in the Bay Area for seven years. She and husband T.J. Mitchell coauthored the bestselling memoir “Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner” before following up with the debut novel of the Dr. Jessie Teska series, “First Cut.” (In June 2020, Melinek resigned as acting chief forensic pathologist for Alameda County and moved with her family to New Zealand.)
To say the prose informs about the human body and the aftermath of death would be a disservice. To read “Aftershock” is to sit for a session with the professionals in the autopsy suite. And when an accident at a highprofile construction site leaves one of the world’s foremost architects dead, it is Teska and her knowledge of the human body that jumpstart the investigation into whether the death was more than what it seems.
Like Kay Scarpetta from Patricia Cornwall’s longstanding crimenovel series, Jessie Teska won’t let the initial evidence of an accident dissuade her from digging for the truth: The architect’s death appears to be staged. The man died somewhere else and in a much different fashion than the construction workers, cops and now Jessie Teska are meant to believe.
If CBS or NBC comes calling in a month or so, it will not be a surprise, as “Aftershock” shares some of the same plot beats as “CSI,” or even “Law & Order.” Namely, Teska is a force and a skilled investigator, but as on those shows, one never feels that Teska is in any real danger until the end. But this is a small quibble in the broader sense of things, as the details brought out in the middle of the novel — sections where Teska bounces from crime scene to police department to courthouse — all add up to a satisfying and harrowing ending.
Every gruesome detail counts in this novel. There are red herrings aplenty, but they are all relevant in one way or another. And though the novel is not perfect — the athome love interest is dead on arrival — there is a lot to admire here. I hope Melinek and Mitchell continue to produce what is already a winning series around Dr. Teska.