The Bone Jar is a police procedural that starts as with investigation into the death of an elderly woman at a derelict mental hospital outside London. On the same night as the murder, a man who was supposed to be exploring the old building goes missing. The investigation into the murder and disappearance bring up old secrets and the dark history of the mental hospital and what happened there decades prior. Overall, this was a solid police procedural with a rotating cast of suspects, alibis, and twists as Detective Lew Kirby and cast investigate these crimes.
This novel employs one of my favorite thriller tropes which is secrets from the past coming back to haunt the present. I really liked how Kane used that idea in this novel where when the sketchy past of the hospital comes up, the investigators keep it in mind but then still look for present day suspects. They don't drop everything and start investigating a cold case from the decades before. I think this is where the other points of view were used the most effectively as they kept reminding the reader of the past while the detectives were talking to present day suspects.
I thought this novel also had some pretty good character relationships. We get some banter between Kirby and his partner, some interpersonal tension at work, and Connie's relationship with her urban explorer friends. I liked how Kirby wasn't a stereotypical jaded or grumpy detective and he didn't have any vices or any dark secret himself. As much as I love complicated heroes, it is nice to have the hero be an actual good guy. I do wish we had explored more of Connie and the urban exploration community, but we did get some good interactions between her and her friends.
The main issue I had with this book was the pacing. For the first half, it was a fairly typical police procedural. The first 2/3 of the book were pretty slow on the action, but the investigation was uncovering lies and secrets from decades prior - standard police procedural. The novel does switch points of view between a few characters, only one of whom is with the police, which gives the reader a break from the procedural elements. However, even these other points of view were paced slow as they investigated their own portions of the mystery. Now I'm fine with slow build police procedurals. I really like seeing all the puzzle pieces fall into place and seeing the detectives put it all together so I was reading along with no problems. But then the last 1/3 of the book kicked into high gear and it was super jarring. All three points of view came together in the same area but were just far enough away that they were still following their different plot threads. And each of the threads was high action so switching points of view would just continue to amp up the tension. Which, I'll admit, I would normally be totally into if the first 2/3 of the book wasn't so slow burn. It was like the first 2/3 ramped from 0 to 20 and then the last 1/3 went from 20 to 100 in just a few chapters. I have book whiplash, that's the best way I can explain it. I did appreciate how this book had the few chapters of 'cool down' after the main action conflict of act 3. I always like to be able to see how characters are able to integrate back into their regular lives after the events of the novel.
At the end, while we do find out who killed the elderly woman, there were more questions left open at the end of the book in regards to Kirby's personal life as well as Connie's sister. It felt like really obvious sequel bait and it was a bit disappointing. I have no issues with some unanswered questions, but the novel left off on such an obvious cliffhanger that it felt unfinished. The reveals at the end were also very important to the characters and it felt like those would have been better suited to be revealed before the third act and then they could have been resolved or at least explored more during the last part of the book. It felt like these last reveals were brought up and then the characters just left them aside to be dealt with later (in a sequel). In general, I'm just not a fan of the super obvious cliffhangers at the end of books. Leave enough open for me to want to explore in a sequel (like DI Kirby getting a phone call about another murder, for example) but this one left a little too much open for my liking.
Slower paced police procedural that really kicks into gear in the last 1/3 of the book. Obvious sequel set up at the end was a bit unsatisfying but overall a really solid detective novel.
328 pages
The Bone Jar was published on July 1, 2020.
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC
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