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Hurricane Katrina makes mortuary investigator happy
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Published: September 7, 2008
FIRST THE DEAD. By Tim Downs. Thomas Nelson. 355 pages. $22.99.
The title of this book is first the Dead -- the small case "f" is not a typo. But don't be misled by the name; once you begin reading, first the Dead proves to be nothing but fun. Sure, it's a bit gross at times, but what story involving forensics isn't? Here's the thing: Nick Polchak thinks he's a bug. His boss thinks he's a pest. And his therapist thinks he's irresistible. With character parameters such as these, plot becomes almost secondary as a vehicle. Mix and match these characters any way you like; hilarity is inevitable.
Nick uses his job as a professor at N.C. State University in Raleigh to pay the bills, but his passion is forensic entomology; he determines facts about a corpse by analyzing the maggots and insects that are devouring it. His favorite pastime is collecting human remains at mass-casualty sites. So when Nick's Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team is called up in preparation for the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina, he happily grabs his "go-bag" and heads off to St. Gabriel, La., to collect the many cadavers expected in the aftermath.
Because live humans hold little fascination for Nick, he is understandably unhappy when he is directed to collect "first the living." But given Nick's often-justified lack of respect for authority, he retrieves two "floaters" on his first day out -- immediately annoying his boss.
The fact that the bodies show obvious signs of foul play only serves to fuel Nick's determination to search for more bodies, which puts him into conflict with a pair of Drug Enforcement Administration agents who "ask" him to report the locations of any other suspicious bodies to them alone and refrain from retrieving any more -- a request Nick finds impossible to honor.
When the agents find another pair of probable murder victims in the laboratory of a flooded hospital, the situation quickly escalates, and Nick begins to wonder if the DEA might have something to do with the murders. Then things really get interesting: His search partner disappears under suspicious circumstances, and somebody begins taking shots at Nick during his excursions.
Simultaneously, we have two subplots working. One is with 10-year-old T.J., the archetypal street urchin/helper/guide who is "looking for his father." The other subplot concerns Beth, the Nick-infatuated therapist who conveniently happens to be the most beautiful woman imaginable. She learns that T.J. has no father, but withholds that information in the hopes that Nick's budding relationship with the boy might help him progress beyond referring to humanity as "your species."
Meanwhile, in his mind, "She seemed to care about Nick the same way that Nick cared about his giant hissing cockroach from Madagascar -- something that fascinates you, not something you form a genuine attachment to." And though he says she could "ruin a perfectly good disaster," it quickly becomes clear that he is more interested in her than he would openly admit.
In keeping with popular opinion concerning psychiatrists, Beth is a mixed bag of neuroses and contradictions. She even has a severe phobia of mice. And as funny as the story is in general, I declare the scene concerning Beth and the boatload of giant swamp rats to be the most effective written comedy I've seen in a long time.
The only negative criticism I have about this story is that the author botches the use of repetition. While this fictional technique is efficacious in underscoring important matters, ramping up tension and developing a theme within a work, Tim Downs' use of it is disjointed, unrelated to the theme and creates expectations that go unfulfilled -- as if someone told him to use repetition, but failed to tell him how.
Balanced against the entertainment value of the rest of the book, this is a minor complaint; I otherwise found the writing to be superb and the story to be as believable as any story needs to be in which the protagonist thinks he is an insect.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to have a good healthy laugh.
■ Steven Beach is a writer who lives in Lawsonville.
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