The Bone House, Brian Freeman, Minotaur, $24.99.
This stand alone is nicely of a piece with Freeman’s scary police series featuring Lt. Jonathan Stride. It’s twisty, hard to put down and has a real grounding in the place where the action happens, in this case, Door County, Wisconsin. Door County is practically a character, and if reading about the chilly Wisconsin air doesn’t make you shiver, the story certainly will.
The story is about two family nightmares that basically intersect, with terrible results. The first thread concerns a fire that destroys the “Bone House” (as in, a family named Bone lived there) as well as most of its occupants. Left alive after the fire is Harris Bone, father to two dead children and a dead wife. He confesses to the crime, leaving behind a teenage daughter, Jen. Jen’s best friend and next door neighbor, Tresa, has a little sister Glory who was feeding a kitty in the Bone’s garage and who was almost killed herself. Tresa grows up studious and introverted; Glory, a wild child. Jen leaves town to live with relatives.
Fast forward, and Tresa has ruined the life of her English teacher, Mark Bradley. Her mother discovers an erotic diary online that details a relationship between Mark and Tresa.. Mark of course loses his job though both he and Tresa deny an affair. Mark’s wife, Hilary, is still a teacher at the same school and as the book opens they are in Florida for a high school dance contest, taking a break in the Florida sunshine and considering their options. This brings Mark, Tresa and Glory all together, and when Glory’s body is discovered on the beach, things get really nasty.
Mark and Hilary have the sinking feeling return of being prime suspects. The go home to tiny Door County where trouble follows, in the form of Tresa and Glory’s mom, and the Florida cop who caught the case, Cab. Cab is the only one who has any chink of doubt about Mark’s guilt. At the same time, little things are making Hilary doubt her rock solid faith in Mark. The fissures mount and things start to break apart in several different ways.
Freeman is a pure thriller writer. He creates an intolerable situation, makes it worse, and then, a la Harlan Coben or Jeffery Deaver, he starts to add a few twists. The eventual denouement is entirely unexpected. It’s one of those books where you actually gasp as you read it—I love that! It’s not so scary or gory that you won’t want another fix from this talented writer. This is a great ride, hard to put down.
To browse more reviews, use the navigation links at the top of the page.