Just Bones: A Mystery - Hardcover

Denhart, Jeffrey

3.25

20 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1885173156 ISBN 13: 9781885173157

Publisher: Write Way Pub, 1996

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Bishop, Iowa, seems to be a perfect picture of contentment with a special small town closeness until the discovery of seven skeletons during the demolition of a hotel. Bill Mullins, the medical examiner, finds a bullet imbedded in one of the chest bones, and determines that the seven were murdered. When further tests reveal the skeletons are over 60 years old, everyone loses interest except Mullins.

Bill keeps up the investigation and slowly begins to realize that Bishop's solidarity is based on deadly secrecy, and that his life is in danger because of it!

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From Publishers Weekly:

A former L.A. emergency-room doctor, now medical examiner and emergency-room resident in Bishop, Iowa, is given seven mysterious deaths to solve in this low-key, absorbing debut. When a demolition crew begins to tear down an abandoned lakeside hotel, they discover a room with two skeletons inside. Called to the scene, Bill Mullins, M.E., and Sheriff Eugene "Bird" Starling discover that the room had been sealed. Then they find two more sealed rooms, each containing bones, and a bullet. Although Bird is content to let the deaths go unsolved, Bill is determined to find out who the victims were so they can be properly buried. He and a forensic anthropologist from the University of Iowa identify "four women of various races and ages and two black men in their thirties"; one of the women had been pregnant. The skeletons had been found in pairs, each placed in a sexually explicit pose before the rooms were sealed. The trail of clues leads Bill toward the new Ku Klux Klan. As the story progresses, affable, fair-minded Bill becomes the reader's bellwether in a turbulent, disturbing situation.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Reclusive narrator Dr. Bill Mullins, county medical examiner in Gibson, Iowa (but formerly of LA), simply putters along until workers demolishing an old lakeside hotel discover several skeletons in three sealed rooms. The mayor and sheriff decide to drop the case when tests reveal the crime scene to be 60 years old, but Millins cannot resist. A very promising first novel, complete with straightforward prose, enigmatic plot, and study protagonist.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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