The Hungry Bones

May 1, 2024
While she waits to hear the results of a job application in far-off Scotland, forensic odontologist Alexa Glock is pulled into several murders spanning more than a century on the South Island of New Zealand. Alexa's friend, forensic archaeologist Dr. Ana Luckenbaugh, wants her help in examining the newly exhumed remains of someone whom readers will assume from his interpolated letters home is Wing Lun, a miner who was drawn to Arrowtown by the late-19th-century gold rush and stayed until the boom had gone bust. So Alexa, who's put her relationship with DI Bruce Horne on hiatus, happens to be on hand when Earl Hammer, the field hand who was convicted 25 years ago of killing Lakes District Cemetery volunteer Cindy Mulligan, is paroled, hacks off his tracking monitor, and goes AWOL. The town's unease turns to terror when Arrowhead Primary School principal Eileen Bowen disappears, presumably because she's become Hammer's latest victim. Queenstown DI Pattie Katakana, the Māori detective in charge of the case, tells Alexa, "We don't have time for old bones when a woman's life is at stake." But that's exactly backward, since Alexa's painstaking forensic work, which once again leaps outside her specialization in teeth to include the fingerprints that convicted Hammer of homicide, turns out to play a crucial role in explaining the deaths of Bowen, Mulligan, and Lun. Even if these cases aren't as closely linked as you might like, they're all well worth your time.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 27, 2024
In Johnson’s gripping fifth mystery featuring Alexa Glock (after The Bone Riddle), the dental forensics expert juggles two cold cases and a recent kidnapping. Though American expat Alexa has long delighted in assisting New Zealand law enforcement, her relationship with Auckland Det. Insp. Bruce Horne is on shaky ground. While Alexa chews on the idea of leaving New Zealand for a new professional opportunity, archaeologist Ana Luckenbaugh asks her for a consultation: Ana has exhumed the century-old body of Chinese gold miner Wing Lun, and Lun’s great-granddaughter has asked her to repatriate the remains to China. While confirming the bones belong to Lun, Alexa notices a hole in the skull that calls his cause of death into question. Then authorities unearth a second skeleton with similar wounds nearby, and the principal of the local school goes missing, shortly after killer Earl Hammer is released from prison. Can Alexa find a link between the cases? Johnson seamlessly ties the past mystery to the present one, and her rich shading of even minor characters sets this apart from similar procedurals. This series continues to impress. Agent: Laura Bradford, Bradford Literary.

May 16, 2024
Alexa Glock, an American forensic scientist working in New Zealand, is contemplating a job offer from a university in Scotland while deciding what to do about a relationship that is not going well when a forensic archaeologist asks for her assistance with the identification of a Chinese gold miner. The miner's family in China wants to repatriate his "hungry ghost." Alexa finds a hole in his skull and a nearby corpse with a similar wound. Meanwhile a school principal goes missing, and the police ask Alexa to assist with the search, while a convicted murderer is freed on parole. When the principal's body turns up in the local river, the community assumes that the freed convict has killed again, and panic ensues. The story is full of interesting lore about the New Zealand gold rush in the 1880s as well as unexpected plot twists that will keep readers turning pages until they reach the exciting ending. Johnson (The Bone Track, 2022) has crafted a compelling story that features little-known history (to American readers, at least) and strong women.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.