Excerpt from Doctor Death by Lene Kaaberbol, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

" There is dried blood in the nasal and oral cavities," said my father. Suddenly, he leaned forward with a wordless exclamation. "What is it?" asked the priest nervously.

But my father had no time to answer. He grabbed a pipette from his bag and quickly bent over the young girl's face again. "What are you doing?" asked the priest indignantly and took a step closer. "You promised, nothing unseemly. Nothing undignified for the dead!"

"It is not undignified," my father cut him off. "But absolutely necessary. Move, you are blocking the light!"

My father later said that it was perhaps just as well that the family had insisted on having a priest present for the examination, because it was a miracle of God that he saw them in the poor light, and even more incredible that he managed to capture two in the glass tube of the pipette.

"What? What?" asked the Commissioner. "What have you found?"

My father shook his head. "I don't know. I have never seen anything like this before. But they look like some type of mites."

"Mites?"

"Yes." He held the pipette toward the Commissioner. "Do you see it? One is still moving."

The priest swallowed abruptly and held the hand with the prayer book in front of his mouth.

"But I thought you said she had not been dead for very long," said the Commissioner.

"Nor has she," said my father slowly, once again holding the glass up toward the light of the gas lamp in order to more clearly observe the pale minute creatures he had caught. " These are not carrion parasites. I think they lived in her while she lived and are leaving her now that she is dead."

Excerpted from Doctor Death by Lene Kaaberbol. Copyright © 2015 by Lene Kaaberbol. Excerpted by permission of Atria/Emily Bestler Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.