First the Dead by Tim Downs Published by: Thomas Nelson Publishers (2008) 368 pages Rating: 7/10 Buy it Now:    Also by Tim Downs: Head Game Ends of the Earth

Nick Polchak, the Bug Man, is a fascinating fictional character. He's a forensic entomologist - in other words, he studies insects that like dead things... especially dead people.

And we just turned off half the potential audience for this book.

No, seriously. The fact that he has such an incredibly creepy and weird job is part of the fascination and amusement factor of the character. A simple example is one of the opening scenes of this novel, in which Nick talks his way out of an annoying blind date by explaining his job. It's a hilarious scene, yet morbidly fascinating at the same time.

This is the third book featuring the Bug Man, but you don't have to be familiar with the previous two to enjoy this one. It's a stand-alone novel.

This time around, Nick is called in as part of the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT) following Hurricane Katrina. Since Nick is obsessed with dead things, he's more than a bit annoyed (and is the only one annoyed) when his group is told to assist in actual rescue missions - rescuing LIVE people. But there's a problem with that. While patrolling the submerged New Orleans, Nick notices some bodies that were clearly (to his trained eye) dead before the hurricane struck. Someone is using the hurricane's devastation to hide evidence of murder.

Nick has to defy his superiors and fight a desperate race against time to uncover the truth before the murderers slip away in the post-storm confusion.

Nick's geeky obsessions, as I said, make him a fascinating character, both to the readers and to the supporting cast of the story. In particular, psychiatrist Dr. Elizabeth Woodbridge is doing her best to figure out what makes the bug man tick. The interaction between the two makes for a great deal of the characterization in the story, and it really works.

The "Christian" content is very light, practically non-existent. But again - this is a great story (in this case a mystery) that is clean and acceptable to Christian audiences, proving once again that Christian fiction doesn't have to be about conversions. Recommended.