Bone Song by John Meaney
Someone is killing celebrities and making off with the bodies. Lieutenant Donal Riordan has been assigned to protect the latest target, a famous opera singer, from the assassins that are sure to strike. He must do everything he can to keep her safe from the madmen who want her bones. He fails.
So goes the first quarter of this book. The storyline with Donal and the Diva is just the beginning of the roller coaster rider that is Bone Song. The plot revolves around a death cult that is stealing the bones of talented people and artists for reasons known only to them. And they don’t like waiting for these people to die a natural death either. There is a federal task force trying to identify all the players and stop the next assassination. Rich and powerful people are mixed up in this and knowing whom to trust is almost impossible. Throw zombies, wraiths, Bone Listeners, and death wolves into the mix and you have a fantastically dark thriller that I couldn’t put down.
The world that Meaney’s characters inhabit is a darkly fantastic necropolis where the sky is various shades of purple and the rain is quicksilver drops of mercury. Power is generated from the bones of the dead, elevators are empty shafts inhabited by bound wraiths, and autopsies are done by Bone Listeners. Familiar and alien at the same time, the world of Bone Song sucked me in. And stays with me still.
I liked the characters in this book almost (but not quite) as much as I liked the world building. Donal is a flawed hero but his flaws are normal, human flaws not the over-exaggerated ones that some authors give their protagonist. Commander Laura Steele is nicely drawn although I would have liked to know more about her past. She is para-live, brought back as a zombie after she died. The author doesn’t share how she died though. Only Donal has some sort of back-story and even that is minimal. The author brings us into his world at a particular point in time and from that point on we’re along for the ride. This made it pretty much impossible for me to put the book down. It wasn’t until after I’d finished that I realized some of the characters weren’t as broadly drawn as I might like them to be.
This is an amazing novel. It is full of mystery, magic, suspense - pretty much anything you could want. I recommend it to anyone who likes dark fantasy or a good thriller. The second book, Black Blood, comes out on 2/24/09. You can bet that it is going on my wishlist!