Mysteries Galore.com

Reviewed by Caryn St. Clair

Bones of Contention is a great start to a fresh new series. In what is essentially a house party mystery, readers are introduced to Dinah Pelerin who has travelled to Australia to be with her dying uncle in his final days. The family, called together to await his death, is made up of a large group of people related (or not) through a complicated series of step parents and half siblings-or nonsiblings, as the case may be. It is also a family that does not get along. There is not an average run of the mill person among this group with each one of them hiding some sort of secret or plotting another agenda altogether. The family is so dysfunctional that their behavior teeters on slapstick in some cases. In fact, the dying man may not actually be dying at all, as some family members believe, but is instead is playing out some sort of fanciful scheme with them all. Throw in that he is extremely wealthy and is redoing his will causes things heat up fast. Oh, and there are two murders to be solved along the way as well.

The book is set in the Australian Outback and the author has used the culture, language and landscape of the Outback to give the book a very realistic feel. As an example, Dinah’s own desire to pursue a career in anthropology was derailed, but she is quick to pick up the Aboriginals’ idea of song lines. This plot line was extremely interesting. The basic idea is that things in nature possess parts of the soul of the peoples who “sang” the land into existence and therefore the landscape holds the footprints of your people’s ancestors. The author arcs this idea over to Dinah’s search to find out her own family “song line,” a story thread not entirely resolved by the end of this book.

While the plot involves two murders, a snake bite, forged art, some seriously troubled people and finally the planned assisted suicide of the family patriarch, the book is far from grim. In fact, the group of odd ball characters, snappy dialogue and laugh out loud moments throughout keeps the pace zipping along making it a hard book to set down until the last page is turned.