From the New Orleans Times-Picayune, 2-13-08

Who knew that bugs would tell the story of death in Hurricane Katrina-stricken New Orleans -- or that a North Carolina mystery writer would deliver eerily accurate details of those awful flooded days?....

From his descriptive, sensitive writing about New Orleans in that terrible time, you'd think Downs was right here -- from the still, hot dark to perilous underwater journeys to escape flooded houses, from inside the rank Dome to deep down in the bayous, from the destroyed evidence room in Criminal District Court to the desperate conditions in Charity Hospital....

Against all expectations, this book is funny. Check out the first scene, in which Nick describes his masticating blind date in terms totally appropriate to the hurricane. The book also is touching, as J.T. manages to break through emotional barriers that Nick has spent a lifetime erecting. Mostly, though, "First the Dead" bears witness. It just feels real.

Review from the New Bern Sun Journal 4-6-08

Starred Review from Publishers Weekly

Downs’s third thriller to feature forensic entomologist Nick “Bug Man” Polchak (after 2004’s Chop Shop) stands out from the pack of CSI-inspired mysteries with its quirky hero and creative handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Polchak—an expert in using bugs to deduce the time and circumstances of death—is a member of DMORT, the disaster mortuary operational response team, used by FEMA to assist with mass casualties. As the deadly hurricane nears New Orleans, DMORT is called to the area, and Polchak soon finds himself locking horns with his superiors, who demand DMORT members make search and rescue their priority. After discovering several floating corpses with injuries pointing to deaths prior to Katrina, Polchak suspects that someone is using the disaster to conceal murder. He’s aided by J.T. Walker, a young man searching for his father amid the chaos, who manages to get through the emotional barriers Polchak has erected against the outside world. Downs’s sensitive evocation of the tragedy, combined with taut writing and well-developed characters, should gain him a wider audience and reward longtime Bug Man fans.