“Hold my hand. It’s like touching the dead, isn’t it?”

100. Doctor Death – Lene Kaaberbol

A historical mystery featuring the headstrong wiliness of a pathologist’s daughter in France, 1894, Doctor Death was a fun read for me. Madeleine Karno has a familiar disposition to me and her zest for figuring out what killed Cecile Montaine after her family won’t allow a full autopsy, whether she or her father performs it, is fun to read. It is in several ways the 1894 version of contact tracing, and even involves the potential for zoonotic transmission, which admittedly sounds not fun – but it is. There’s nuns and a wolf and some serious weirdness there, over 200 years post-Grandier and everything.

Well, her name’s Murderface, so clearly she could step into this universe.