Friday, December 05, 2008

Skin and Bones -- Tom Bale

A madman walks through a quiet English village, killing its inhabitants. A woman who escapes him sees something that she thinks no one else does: a second man who kills the first, making it appear to be a suicide. Before long, the second man is looking for her.

There's plenty more going on, too. The second man has a controller. There's a big real estate deal that involves the village. Plots within plots, crosses and doublecrosses, and nothing is quite what it seems to be. Did the madman have a purpose? Who was his real target? Or was there a target at all?

Julia Trent, the survivor, joins forces with a troubled newspaperman, Craig Walker, whose father was one of the shooting victims, and they try to find their way through the maze of mysteries before they're killed. It's all told at a breakneck clip with short chapters that help keep the pages turning. This one hits the market in January, and I predict big sales.

1 comment:

Martin Edwards said...

I read this author's first book (written under a different name) and enjoyed it. But as you say, this one seems more likely to be the breakthrough.