For those who believe there’s not enough fiction out there written by engineers for engineers, the emergence a few years ago of E&T’s favourite novelist Fiona Erskine was something of a breath of fresh air. Her two ‘Chemical Detective’ novels, released in rapid succession, introduced a new folk heroine to our world in the form of the irresistible Jaq Silver, whose international crime-busting antics drew on every molecule of her encyclopaedically nerdish knowledge of chemistry, as well as something of a Lara Croft-ish approach to all things cloak-and-dagger.
While aficionados of Erskine’s work hotly await the third instalment of her Jaq Silver series, they will possibly be frustrated that her latest offering – ‘Phosphate Rocks: A Death in Ten Objects’ (Sandstone Press, £8.99, ISBN 9781913207526) – is a departure from the Chemical Detective universe. But they can rest assured that we remain in the same capable hands in this standalone novel that bristles...