Belle de Jour

A body is found and questions must be answered – the conspiracy runs right to the top . . .

CONSPIRACIES, MURDER, SECRETS AND LIES.

The body of Miri Goldstein, a high-class call girl is found mummified in an alleyway admits all the rubbish but it doesn’t take police long to make an arrest.
Miri had connections to some very powerful men and with her death she takes her secrets to the grave with her. Or has she?

In Scotland a body is discovered wrapped in a bag, decomposing in a loch.
Harriet Hitchin the pathologist is called in to examine the body or what is left of it.
The police believe they already have the killer but Harriet believes they have got it all wrong. If she is wrong it will mean the end of her career but if she is correct she might have just put herself in danger. Is the fact that she is fighting alcohol addiction impairing her judgment?

The book is from 2 points of view, Harriet Hitchin the pathologist and Denise Ang, Miri’s friend.

The descriptions of the morgue scenes are very detailed and gruesome and it is that that make’s it a bit different from other books in this stacked genre and in my opinion the best bits of the book!

There is a hell of a lot going on in this book covering a multitude of topics such as Call girls, Hitmen, Gun running, Sex, Abuse, Murder, Crooked politicians and sleazy journalists as well as the lives of the 2 main characters. As the book comes to a close the 2 storylines come together in a rather unexpected way!

The author Brooke Magnanti is a forensic scientist in real life which explains the detail she puts into those parts of the book and whilst she was working on her doctoral thesis she worked as a call girl, which again gives this book a slight edge over other similar books.
It was her diaries and published blogs about working as a call girl that were adapted for the hit tv show “Secret Diary of a Call Girl”… (altro)