P.J. Parrish A Thousand Bones

A Thousand Bones

P.J. Parrish

Pocket, Jul 2007, $7.99

ISBN 1416525874

Louis Kincaid's significant other Miami-Dade Police Department's only female homicide detective Joe Frye looks back thirteen years ago to her first year as a cop. In 1975 the rookie Frye worked in the Sheriff's department of Leelanau County, Michigan where the job was one boring shift after another. Frye thought the ennui would drive her from her dream of being a cop.

That is her job was tedious until the human remains were found in the woods near Echo Bay. Soon afterward more bones were uncovered making it obvious that several people were murdered. The county law enforcement was dealing with a particularly vicious serial killer whose victims were young women. Frye and others worked the case, but she alone honed in on enigmatic Native American carvings that were on a tree overlooking the gruesome crime scene. As she begins to solve the whodunit, the culprit hones in on the sleuth with plans to make her his next tortured female victim.

Following up her strong supportive role in AN UNQUIET GRAVE, Frye takes the lead from her lover Kincaid who plays the minor second banana; no one will care as a star is born. Frye is delightful as that case in her first season as a cop haunts her in 1988 so much so it is difficult for her to talk to anyone, even Kincaid, about it. The police procedural is cleverly designed, but even after the killer is known by Frye and readers, the tale smoothly switches into a cat and mouse encounter with the cop being the rodent. P.J. Parrish provides a powerful refreshing spin to his Kincaid saga with this sequel that begs for more Frye cases.

Harriet Klausner