Darwin's Blade — Dan Simmons

A series of high-speed fatal car wrecks--accidents that seem as if they may have been staged--is leading Darwin Minor down a dangerous road. A reluctant expert on violent ways to die, he sifts clues from wreckage the way a brilliant coroner extracts damning information from a victim's corpse. But the deeper he digs, the more enemies he seems to make, and the wider the conspiracy seems to grow. Before long, he'll find himself relying on deadly resources of his own in order to save his life--and those of untold others.