Remains Silent

Michele Santopietro provides an up-tempo reading of this cross between "Moonlighting" and "CSI." Skeletal remains are unearthed at a mall site in Upstate New York. Police probing reveals that someone is covering up more than skeletons. As the investigation unfolds, "Manny" Manfreda, attractive, slave-to-fashion, smart-alecky trial attorney meets Jake Rosen, the handsome, intelligent, well-respected medical examiner. Predictably, their relationship turns into mutual attraction amid an action-packed, scientifically engaging plot. Santopietro goes a little overboard with Manny's wisecracking insights, and her secondary characters aren't clearly voiced, frequently sounding too high-pitched and ingenuous. Even so, her energetic narration helps keep the romance steamy and the forensics smart, witty, and fast paced. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

June 20, 2005
Married couple Baden, former New York City medical examiner, and Kenney, legal commentator for CNN and Court TV, team up for this debut thriller starring a romantic and professional pair with job titles remarkably similar to their own. Dr. Jake Rosen, deputy chief medical examiner for New York City, gets a call from his beloved mentor, Dr. Pete Harrigan, who as county medical examiner in his retirement upstate, has just been handed a pile of bones dug up in an excavation for a new mall. After Harrigan identifies the bones of Korean War vet James Albert Lyons, who mysteriously disappeared in 1963, Jake suggests that Lyons's daughter hire an attorney, Philomena "Manny" Manfreda, a fashionista spitfire who specializes in representing the downtrodden. On their first date, Jake takes Manny to dinner and then to an emergency autopsy, where they banter cute while he dissects the corpse. After Harrigan dies of apparently natural causes, the body count rises, the romance between Manny and Jake heats up and soon nefarious experiments by the government come to light. Pedestrian writing and an implausible ending detract from this vehicle for Baden and Kenney's medical and criminal expertise. 11-city author tour.