Only Flesh and Bones - Softcover

Andrews, Sarah

3.49

226 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312967020 ISBN 13: 9780312967024

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1999

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Still recuperating from her father's death and her mother's recovery from alcohol addiction, geologist and amateur sleuth Emily "Em" Hansen is out of work and unhappily whiling away her time on her family's Wyoming ranch. So when her former boss, oil millionaire J.C. Menken, asks Em for help--and offers to find her a job if she does--she has no choice but to accept.

J.C. wife Miriam died a mysterious death--and his teenaged daughter Cecelia was the only witness. But a traumatized Cecelia can't remember anything about the incident, and can't seem to get on with her life. J.C. wants Em to help his daughter get back on track--but will he want to hear the shocking truths that Em uncovers about his deceased wife and the real reason for her untimely death?

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Review:

Oil geologist and reluctant crime solver Em Hansen is one of the most interesting characters in recent mystery fiction--a strong woman with believable weaknesses and none of the smugness or coyness that bog down heroines of other, better-selling series. At the start of her fourth book, Sarah Andrews has Em helping her distant mother deliver a calf on the family ranch in Wyoming and wondering about her career choices: "If I hadn't found my own way to the edge, life might have been quite different for me. I might have had what it took to stay on my parents' ranch, or found myself married up to a neighboring spread, instead of heading off into these other lives of mine...." Luckily for us, Em's other lives--chronicled so sharply in A Fall in Denver, Tensleep, and Mother Nature--all available in paperback--make for rewarding reading. The latest book begins with an offer from a patronizing ex-boss to help the unemployed Em find a job--if she will try to discover why his 16-year-old daughter, Cecilia, is having such a hard time getting over the suspicious death of her mother. Em has to dig deeply into Cecilia's repressed memory and the dead woman's heartbreaking journals before some glimpse of the truth is revealed--and her search is suspenseful, poignant, and surprisingly sensual. --Dick Adler

From the Publisher:

"Sexy and intriguing. I dare you to read the first page and put this book down." --Susan Dunlap, author of No Immunity

"After a few more cases, geologist Em Hansen may be as tough as the best of her sleuthing peers, but her vulnerability offers singular pleasures to current readers." --Publishers Weekly

"Her tale contains a canny, entertaining mixture of elements.... The intersections of new money and old ways of living in the West find a convincing chronicler in Andrews." --Washington Post Book World

"[Em Hansen is] a clear-thinking, straight-talking heroine whose unabashed naivete is endearing." --The New York Times Book Review

"In the fourth book in the series, Andrews moves away from the rig to issues of mothers, daughters, and ranch life. But she continues to tell a good story." --New Orleans Times-Picayune

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