The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen

I've read all the books in Tess Gerritsen's Dr. Maura Isles (an M.E. for Boston) and Det. Jane Rizzoli series. The series focusses on two women who solve mysteries and fight crime; books in the series tend to take turns on who is the focus of the action. For example, one book might have Isles at center stage, while the next one has Rizzoli at center stage. The Bone Garden, Gerritsen's most recent book, is actually a stand alone novel, though it does feature a cameo appearance by Isles at the beginning of the book.

The action flips back and forth between the present and 1830. In the present a woman named Julia is trying to fit together the pieces of a hundred year old series of murders and solve the mystery of the old bones found buried in the back yard of her new house. The majority of the action takes place in 1830 in Boston where the aforementioned series of murders is in full swing; it is up to two medical students and a recent Irish immigrant to Boston named Rose to solve the murders.

The novel is fast paced and a quick read of a page turner. There are also parallel love stories woven throughout the present and the past parts of the story. While the love story that takes place in the past is well developed and adds to the drama, the love story that takes place in the present seems superficial and out of place because we spend so little time with the story in the present. In the end we are not as invested with the characters that populate the present as we are with those that populate 1830 Boston. This is a good read for any fan of Tess Gerritsen as well as those who enjoy historical mysteries.

This book is available upstairs in adult fiction at Fic/Ger; it is currently shelved in New Arrivals section next to the water fountain. It is also available upon request from Annville Free Library, Lebanon Community Library, Myerstown Community Library, and Palmyra Public Library.

--reviewed by Ms. Angie

Comments

How To Be A Heroine: Or What I've Learned From Reading Too Much by Samantha Ellis

I feel as if I could write a book subtitled "What I've Learned From Reading Too Much" except all my lessons would be culled from Greek mythology, the Babysitters' Club, the lives of British queens, crime mysteries, suspense thrillers and celebrity and entertainment gossip. I first ran across How To Be A Heroine by Samantha Ellis in an ad in BookPage. The title sounded intriguing and once I looked it up on Amazon, I was in for reading it. It reminds me of the literacy autobiography writing assignment that I had in one of my English composition classes in college--except this is the literacy autobiography on steroids. The premise of this book is that the author revisits the seminal texts that she read in her youth by examining the lessons and impressions of the novels that she had upon her first readings when she was younger. Ellis has then re-read the novels as an adult specifically for the writing of her own book to see if the novels hold up to her original i

Heat Lightning by John Sandford

I'd previously read John Sandford's first Virgil Flowers novel, Dark of the Moon , a few years back and found it to be a quick, well written read. Recently I discovered he has since written three more Flowers titles and decided to start with the second title and read through to the fourth and most recent one. Heat Lightning is the second Flowers installment. The darkness of the crimes committed that must be solved in the novel are leavened by the lighter presentation of Flowers and the story. It works well together--a dark crime doesn't always need dark prose to back it up. Virgil Flowers is Lucas Davenport's go to man in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension when there's a sensitive, tough or otherwise puzzling case to solve. Flowers has a high clearance rate and can often turn around a case in about a week. This particular case is especially perplexing with quite a few red herrings thrown into the mix to throw everyone--Flowers and the reader in

The Whisperers by John Connolly

If there was one thing Jimmy didn't care for, it was competition, ... There were some exceptions to that rule: he was rumored to have a sweet deal with the Mexicans, but he wasn't about to try to reason with the Dominicans, or the Columbians, or the bikers, or even the Mohawks. If they wanted to avail themselves of his services, as they sometimes did, that was fine, but if Jimmy Jewel started questioning their right to move product he and Earle would end up tied to chairs in the [bar] with pieces of themselves scattered by their feet, assuming their feet weren't among the scattered pieces, while the bar burned down around their ears, assuming they still had ears. from page 86 The Whisperers is John Connolly's newest Charlie Parker installment in which some beloved characters reappear and in which previous characters from another Parker installment reappear to shed further light on the big baddie that may or may not be coming for Parker in the future. This newest inst

A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Search This Blog