Clara Benning is a vet in a small village: working for a charitable organisation devoted to the welfare of wild animals, she manages to avoid human contact as much as possible, a trait she's cultivated all her life due to her awkwardness at having a facial disfigurement. A series of snake-related incidents in the village demand her involvement though, and then people start to die of snake poisoning...

This was pretty toshy, but I did enjoy listening to it. The story was implausible, there were red herrings a-plently, and I guess there were some loose plot ends left untied, but bits of it were satisfyingly creepy, even if they were cliched - Clara exploring deserted cottages on her own in the dark; Clara seeing suspicious stuff which has disappeared by the time someone else comes to look, etc..

I learned a bit about snakes as well - one of the types of snake to appear in the book was the taipan, which I hadn't known was the world's most venomous, and I didn't know the word for someone who studied reptiles was a herpetologist.

I would listen to more by this author. Not high literature, but held my attention, and I was disappointed when it ended.

Completed : 30-Sep-2011 (audiobook)