Death-inspired novel is close to the bone

Written in Bone, the second featuring British forensic anthropologist Dr David Hunter, stemmed from an assignment Simon was given a few years ago.

A freelance journalist, he was sent out to the National Forensic Academy’s Body Farm in Tennessee where police experts discover what happens when dead bodies rot.

It provides just the sort of information they need when investigating murders.

“It’s pretty grim stuff but I came away feeling there was a novel in it,” says Simon at his home in Ranmoor, Sheffield.

He doesn’t mind admitting he was nervous of the story but then so were the police.

“There were literally bodies lying around but it was surprising how quickly they got used to it. By the third day they were exhuming bodies and talking about what they were having for lunch!

“When I came away I couldn’t believe I had been there and done that.”

The result was last year’s novel, The Chemistry of Death, which saw the first appearance of Hunter, who after a crisis in his life had gone back to being a GP until police coaxed him out of retirement.

That book, a crime thriller, was based in Norfolk. Written In Bone is set on a fictitious Hebridean island.

The 47-year-old author will be signing copies tomorrow at Waterstones, Orchard Square (from noon-2pm) and will be giving readings from it at the upcoming Bakewell Arts Festival

“Writing a sequel is not as easy as you might think. It is a bit like the second album syndrome with musicians, you don’t want to disappoint people,” he admits wryly.

He shows all his books - this is the sixth - to his wife Hilary “who generally tears them to pieces. But she did come up with the title for the book.”

Simon started getting published back in the Nineties with a series of thrillers, Fine Lines, Animals, Where There’s Smoke, which was adapted for TV, and Owning Jacob, which appeared in 1998, and didn’t do as well as hoped.

In publishing you’re only as good as your last book so he went back to his first profession, journalism, to earn a crust.

Chemistry of Death restored his reputation and earned him a three book deal. He’s at work on the third but is understand-ably reluctant to say too much.

He treats writing like an office job, leaving home each day to hammer out the words in a tiny flat in nearby Nether Edge.

He doesn’t have anyone in mind when he writes about Hunter but says that actor Greg Wise, hired to read the audiobook, “would be a pretty decent Hunter. He has that haunted quality about the character.”

n Published by Bantam at 12.99