Review: Small Bones (Detectives Harvey & Birch Mysteries Book 2) by Kerry Buchanan

   

Print Length: TBA

Publisher: Joffe Books (June 3, 2021)

From Goodreads.com:  If you can’t trust your father and you can’t trust the police, who can you trust?

Sue Hearn is planting a herb garden on the site of her grandfather’s old greenhouse. She’s spent the morning digging up all sorts of odds and ends already. But she doesn’t expect this grisly find.

Could it be the remains of her mother, Monica, who went missing thirty years ago?

Sue’s father, in hospital with dementia, insinuates that a police officer was involved in her mother’s disappearance. But can he be trusted?

So now Detectives Asha Harvey and Aaron Birch might be looking for a bent copper.

As they dig deeper into the past, Sue and Asha find secrets so dangerous it will put all their lives in danger.

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My Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Even though this was book number two in the series, I did not feel like I had missed out on anything by not having read the prior story. In fact, this novel only made me go back and add book number one to my t0-be-read pile (it's currently free if you subscribe to kindle unlimited).

This was a gripping novel that kept me glued to the pages as I raced alongside Asha and Aaron as they tried to not only unravel a thirty-year-old murder mystery, but also try to uncover the corruption that had plagued their department for decades at the same time. 

One of the things that makes Small Bones stand out against the others of this genre I have read recently is just how the author went about building things up. There was a near perfect mix of the police investigating in the present, the events that happened in the past, and how everything intertwined both through police work (although it relied a bit heavily on Sue being forthcoming with them when she had no reason to do so originally). 

I felt that there was strong character development across the board (even if Asha and Aaron seem to have more bad luck than should be humanly possible; Aaron especially if the insights from book one are to be believed). However, I did have a small issue with the name inconstancies that were never explained when it came to Monica. She was either known as Mrs.Hearn or Monica, unless the story was being told by a student (in the past), or someone who remembered her as a teacher, at which point she became Miss Stewart, something that was never explained even though it was obvious it was the same person. Was she not really married to Sue's father? Or did she just not have her pupils call her by her married name (although this seems a bit farfetched considering she had a teenaged daughter at this point). 

My one big gripe with Small Bones is that it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger ending. This wasn't enough for me to deduct stars though because although the ending of this story did leave a few important ends not completely tied up, it did perfectly pave the way for another novel in the series; a novel I am very much look forward to.

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.

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                                                 Small Bones is available from Amazon.com

                                              (for free if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited).