What do readers think of The Bone Thief by Vanessa Lillie? Write your own review.

Reading this book reminded me, unfortunately, of how entitled some people are. Why is it OK to dig up Native American relics, bones, personal items and believe because your ancestors were on the Mayflower that you can keep them as souvenirs. This book is a mystery and a history lesson. I thought it was well written and engaging. It made me sad learning of the Natives history and how they were treated. It made me very happy that in present day there were people committed to doing what's necessary for respectful preservation.

I am in awe of the research Vanessa Lillie did to make this story bring out truth in a balanced way. This book is a reminder of how the Native Americans were (are) treated. Syd, the protagonist, manages to set things right and find a missing teenager. I didn't realize I was holding my breath until Naomi's baby was safely born and I gave a sigh of relief.

A timely theme about ownership and traditions for the remains of ancestors in lands taken by American colonizers from the original inhabitants. The story line and mystery moved along quickly. The characters were not too complex, nor were they stereotypes. The Author's note at the end was helpful in explaining the research incorporated in the novel, and the liberties with some facts for the sake of the story. A worthwhile read.

The Bone Thief starts out with Bureau of Indian Affairs archaeologist Syd Walker, called to investigate a chilling case at a remote summer camp. Newly buried skeletal remains have gone missing—and a local Native American teenage girl has vanished too. As local authorities downplay her disappearance, Syd uncovers troubling links to an elite Founders Society, the descendants of colonial settlers who claim ancestral land rights.

The disappearances, it becomes clear, aren't isolated and seem to be an ominous pattern that has spanned generations. There are deep rooted layers of privilege and inherited power and this reminded me a bit of 'Killers of the flower moon', as the white men married into the American Indian tribes just to get mineral land rights.

This book is similar to her previous novel, Blood Sisters, as Lillie tackles the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW), offering a fictionalized yet resonant insight into systemic erasure and injustice faced by Native communities nationwide. She also brings back the character of Syd Walker, so if you read her earlier book, this part will be familiar as well. It is scary, disturbing, and very emotional. I love that the author is of Sioux-Cherokee descent, which gives the novel integrity, vulnerability, and a personal investment in finding justice. She also does a good job highlighting how the ways history can reverberate painfully into the present.

It is a history that you do not always think about day-to-day but that had a lasting impact on indigenous cultures that continues today. The conflicts carried through from the past and shaped the present-day events in the book. It did prompt me to look up some of the historical events. However, i thought some of the characters were stereotypical and not much complexity was provided for them.

I wasn't able to connect with this book. I understand this is the second book in the series about Syd Walker that can also be read as a standalone. I didn't read the first book, which may have been part of the disconnect for me. There were several characters that seemed to be introduced in the first book, with little background/context in the second. The Bone Thief also had several characters that didn't seem important to the plot of the book, which made it confusing to keep up with everyone. Readers who have finished the first book may connect better with The Bone Thief.

Everyone is a suspect and there are as many suspects as crimes committed.
This story has a lot of moving parts and few too many characters, most of which had similar one-syllable shortened names, that made it difficult to keep the good guys separate from the bad guys.

It reminds me of a cake recipe that has a long list of ingredients that don't all necessarily need to be added to the cake mix to enhance the flavor or texture to make it more palatable. Sometimes less is more…

The Bone Thief is Vanessa Lillie's second novel about #MMIW2S (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Two-Spirit People). When narrator Syd, a Cherokee and Bureau of Indian Affair's archeologist, mentions two murders in Oklahoma involving Syd and her friend Luna, I was confused until reading this was a sequel to Lillie's Blood Sisters on her webpage! Set in Rhode Island, the missing/feared murdered young Narragansett woman is Naomi, who Syd previously had supervised as an intern. Lillie squanders her opportunity to educate readers about Native issues with a convoluted tale, fabricating a "Founders Society" populated by a cast of improbable participants with serious mental health problems or character flaws. The themes of tribal land theft, "adopting out," and handling of indigenous peoples' remains discussed in the Author's Note, issues with the BIA, and the complexities of human relationships are all contemporary concerns that can engage readers without such dramatization.