Chop Shop
Tim Downs
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2004 Howard Publishing Company
ISBN: 1582294011

Bug Man Novel#2 the case of an illegal body organ procurement conspiracy.

“The flies on the wall can talk, & forensic entomologist Nick Polchak is listening.” If you caught Tim Downs' first thriller Shoo Fly Pie, you'll know you are now entering an entirely different world in which the bugs outnumber us by a zillion to one, they come in a mind-boggling variety, which only the Bug Man knows.

Chop Shop starts out twenty years ago in a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center restroom, with an arrant, young doctor on the hunt for body parts, practicing how he's going to get the family of a freshly-drowned little girl to give up her kidneys. When the hospital chaplain offers his assistance, Dr. Julian Zohar high-handedly rejects the priest's intervention, thus dooming his quest. Why? Because Dr. Zohar is callow & impatient. After bungling the interview with the grieving parents, he slams out of the waiting room, accusing them of condemning another little girl across town, to certain death, determined to set in place a plan to make sure that never happens again.

Fast forward to North Carolina State University 2003, where Nick Polchak is priming his students in General Entomology during a summer session. Dr. Polchak has no patience with his faint-hearted students & steps over the PC teaching line, inadvertently if predictably, humiliating one particular dullard of a student. Later, doing a Show & Tell at a local elementary school in penance for his rude if erudite behavior, he so freaks out the teacher, he's put on a forced sabbatical. So now he's visiting with his mom, ripe for an adventure when pretty Dr. McKay inveigles her way into his greenhouse, flashing the two things that'll get our hero's attention: bugs & money. What? You thought it would be something else?

Dr. Riley McKay has worked hard for her career in pathology, & she's secured a fellowship at the renowned Allegheny County Coroner's Office in Pittsburgh. Trouble is she's been noticing incomplete reports, concealed evidence & unexplained wounds on the corpses during her supervisor's routine autopsies. Worried about the implications, especially since her supervisor insists she sign-off on his autopsies, she takes some maggots that shouldn't have been in one corpse, if the doctor's time of death is correct, to the Bug Man.

Nick is intrigued, both by this delightful newcomer & all those lovely maggots, & these two mis-matched scientists set out on the trail of corporate greed, misappropriation of body parts & murder most foul.

I was delighted to meet Nick Polchak, with his thick glasses & huge eyes, his ‘mad professor’ glee with his subject, & his inner life! Tim Downs has a hilarious way with words, making fun of the pomposity of academia & financial tycoons, all the while spinning a lively, informative yarn. & if the ending, the real ending, leaves a bit to be desired, well, isn't that just like life?

More from Tim Downs: Shoo Fly Pie
(02/13/05)

Rebecca