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How long does it take to read The Chemistry of Death?

Simon Beckett

The Chemistry of Death by Simon Beckett takes about 7 hours 20 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

About 7 hours 20 minutes

A weekend read

First published 2006. 400 pages, about 110,000 words.

15 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 12 hours 13 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 7 hours 20 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 4 hours 35 minutes

The page count is the median across 33 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

Three years ago, David Hunter moved to rural Norfolk to escape his life in London, his gritty work in forensics, and a tragedy that nearly destroyed him. Working as a simple country doctor, seeing his lost wife and daughter only in his dreams, David struggles to remain uninvolved when the corpse of a woman is found in the woods, a macabre sign from her killer decorating her body. In one horrifying instant, the quiet summer countryside that had been David's refuge has turned malevolent--and suddenly there is no place to hide.The village of Manham is tight-knit, far from the beaten path. As a newcomer, Dr. Hunter is immediately a suspect. Once an expert in analyzing human remains, he reluctantly joins the police investigation--and when another woman disappears, it soon becomes personal. Because this time she is someone David knows, someone who has managed to penetrate the icy barrier around his heart. With a killer's bizarre and twisted methods screaming out to him, with a brooding countryside beset with suspicion, David can feel the darkness gathering around him. For as the clock ticks down on a young woman's life, David must follow a macabre trail of clues--all the way to its final, horrifying conclusion.From the Hardcover edition.

Subjects: Forensic anthropologists, Fiction, Science Fiction, Suspense, Serial murders, fiction, Fiction, thrillers, suspense

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