Category Archives: Jennifer Graeser Dornbush

Title: The Coroner by Jennifer Graeser Dornbush
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 336 pages
Book Rating: B

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

Summoned from her promising surgical career first to her estranged father’s bedside, and then his post as medical examiner when his small town needs urgent help with a suspicious death, Emily Hartford discovers home is where the bodies are in this pitch perfect mystery debut.

Recently engaged and deeply ensconced in her third year of surgical residency in Chicago, Emily Hartford gets a shock when she’s called home to Freeport, MI, the small town she fled a decade ago after the death of her mother. Her estranged father, the local medical examiner, has had a massive heart attack and Emily is needed urgently to help with his recovery.

Not sure what to expect, Emily races home, blowing the only stoplight at the center of town and getting pulled over by her former high school love, now Sheriff, Nick Larson. At the hospital, she finds her father in near total denial of the seriousness of his condition. He insists that the best thing Emily can do to help him is to take on the autopsy of a Senator’s teen daughter whose sudden, unexplained death has just rocked the sleepy town.

Reluctantly agreeing to help her father and Nick, Emily gets down to work, only to discover that the girl was murdered. The autopsy reminds her of her many hours in the morgue with her father when she was a young teen—a time which inspired her love of medicine. Before she knows it, she’s pulled deeper into the case and closer to her father and to Nick—much to the dismay of her big city fiance. When a threat is made to Emily herself, she must race to catch the killer before he strikes again in The Coroner, expertly written and sharply plotted, perfect for fans of Patricia Cornwell and Julia Spencer Fleming.

Review:

The Coroner by Jennifer Graeser Dornbush is an intriguing small town mystery.

Surgical resident Dr. Emily Hartford is shocked to learn her  father Robert has had a massive heart attack. Although their relationship is strained, she rushes home to Freeport, the small town which she left twelve years ago. Virtually as soon as she arrives, Sheriff (and former Emily’s former boyfriend) Nick Larson pleads with her to perform an autopsy on high school senior Julie Dobson.  Emily quickly acquiesces and much to both her and Nick’s surprise, she discovers Julie is the victim of foul play. With Emily’s assistance, Nick begins delving into the young woman’s past to solve her murder.

Following her mother’s puzzling death, Emily found it impossible to recover her formerly close relationship with her father.  She left town to live with her aunt while she finished school and she has never returned for a visit. Recently engaged to fellow doctor Brandon Taylor, Emily rushes to her father’s side but the issues that have plagued them for years mar their reunion. Despite her intention to leave as quickly as possible, Emily cannot resist helping Nick investigate Julie’s troubling death.

By all accounts, Julie is a well-liked young woman with a promising future head of her. Since she is an excellent horsewoman, everyone is shocked that her death appears to be an accidental fall from her horse. After her death is ruled a homicide, Nick is scrambling to keep the media at bay while he begins his investigation from scratch. He and Emily work some aspects of the case together but Nick becomes frustrated as she strikes out on her own to find answers for some of their disconcerting findings. When Emily literally stumbles across the killer, will she become the next victim?

The Coroner is a well-executed mystery with a clever plot and appealing characters.  Emily undergoes quite a transformation after returning to Freeport and she is pleasantly surprised by her reaction to her homecoming.  The investigation into Julie’s death moves at steady pace and Jennifer Graeser Dornbush keeps the perpetrator’s identity and motive for the crime carefully concealed until the novel’s rather exciting conclusion.  Although Julie’s case is completely wrapped up, there is a bit of cliffhanger that will leave readers hopeful there will be future books starring Dr. Emily Hartford.