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Published in USA
Dec 2008
352 pages
Genre: Mysteries
Publication Information
In the northern California town of Coventry, two teenage brothers go into the woods one day, but only one comes back. No one knows what happened to the younger brother, Josh, until twenty years later, when the older brother, Oren, now an ex-investigator for the Army CID, returns to Coventry for the first time in many years. His first morning back, he hears a thump on the front porch. Lying in front of the door is a human jawbone, the teeth still intact. And it is not the first such object, his father tells him. Other remains have been left there as well. Josh is coming home . . . bone by bone.
Using all his investigative skills, Oren sets out to solve the mystery of his brother’s murder, but Coventry is a town full of secrets and secret-keepers: the housekeeper with the fugitive past, the deputy with the old grudge, the reclusive ex-cop from L.A., the woman with the title of town monster, and, not least of all, Oren himself. But the greatest secret of all belonged to his brother, and it is only by unraveling it that Oren can begin to discover the truth that has haunted them all for twenty years.
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"Starred Review. Although O'Connell explores new characters and crimes here, her focus remains tight on the damage that humans can do to each other." - Library Journal.
"Over-the-top characters show up weak plot points in this psychological thriller. " - Kirkus Reviews.
"It’s far better to read “Bone by Bone” for its gamesmanship than for its plotting. Colonel Mustard at the séance with a Ouija board. That’s the spirit in which this book has been written." - New York Times, Janet Maslin.
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Born in 1947, Carol O'Connell studied at the California Institute of Arts/Chouinard and Arizona State University. For many years she survived on occasional sales of her paintings as well as freelance proof-reading and copy-editing.
At the age of 46 she sent the manuscript of Mallory's Oracle to Hutchinson, because she felt that a British publisher would be sympathetic to a first time novelist and because Hutchinson also publish Ruth Rendell. Having miraculously found the book on the 'slush pile', Hutchinson immediately came back with an offer for world rights, not just for Mallory's Oracle but for the second book featuring the same captivating heroine.
At the Frankfurt Book Fair, Hutchinson sold the rights to Dutch, French and German publishers for six figure sums. Mallory's Oracle ...
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