The Bone Yard [Hardcover]

Paul Johnston (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 11, 2000

New Year's Eve 2021. The one night of the year when the guards are less vigilant. The perfect time for murder.

Welcome to twenty-first-century Edinburgh: an oppressive, crime-free independent city state, run by the Council of City Guardians. New Labour has failed, and in the disastrous break-up of Britain, city states have formed fiefdoms, walling themselves off from other warring parts. In the "perfect" city republic of Edinburgh, electricity, food, and even sex are rationed. Television, private cars, and cigarettes are banned, and crime is a distant memory.

But when the mutilated body of a man is found, subversive, blues-haunted private investigator Quintilian Dalrymple and his side-kick Davie are put back on the case. They must uncover the significance of the killer's eerie calling card-a blues cassette planted inside the victims' bodies. What is the connection between these tapes and a small blue tablet that causes a massive increase in alertness and sexual potency? Why does the Medical Directorate try to cover up the murder of an old man? Quint knows the solution-and the killer's identity-lies somewhere in the Bone Yard, if he can ever figure out what the Bone Yard is...

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Bone Yard is a dystopian thriller set in Edinburgh during the harsh winter of 2021. Rogue detective Quintilian Dalrymple, a former bureaucrat who left his high-ranking job to work for the parks service and solve mysteries on the side, sets about catching a serial killer with a peculiar signature. The killer bites out the victim's throat, cuts out the tongue, removes the genitals, and leaves in the cavity a cassette of the electric blues of Clapton, Hendrix, and others. In the allegedly crime-free Edinburgh city-state (which is expressly modeled on Plato's Republic, but in practice resembles every cliché of pre-1990 Eastern Bloc regimes), blues music is contraband. So are casual sex, monogamy, fattening foods, all drugs, and more-than-weekly showers. So why does the killer leave cryptic messages via electric blues?

Johnston won Britain's John Creasey Award for best first crime novel with 1999's Body Politic, and in The Bone Yard he possibly takes for granted that his readers already know and care about Dalrymple and his cohorts. Character development is scanty, so the playful rivalry between Dalrymple and sidekick Davie, for example, is mostly conveyed through edginess and four-letter words. Their terseness is juxtaposed against the obfuscatory language of the council, the "iron Boy Scouts" who gradually become implicated in the four grisly murders and a related scheme. The serial murderer's infelicitous musical clues lead Dalrymple to discover a dangerous drug remarkably like Viagra, which is being manufactured illegally within the Edinburgh city-state. Dalrymple travels to a zoo, a slaughterhouse, and a foul fishing boat to find the lab, which may be tied to the mysterious "Bone Yard" that the council shrouds in top-level security and secrecy. In addition, a nubile exotic dancer meets an untimely end, leading the two detectives and Dalrymple's tough ex-girlfriend Katharine to the Three Graces sex club, which caters to Edinburgh's rich and burgeoning tourist population. Readers trolling for mysteries set in exciting locales may thus be gratified by The Bone Yard, which is a blend of 1984 (though with inferior prose), The China Syndrome, and Showgirls. The plot moves briskly through dark terrain, both physically and philosophically. It's got a relentlessly downbeat tenor, but Johnston intricately ties together the threads of the four murder victims and their psychopathic killer, and the secret of the Bone Yard. --Kathi Inman Berens

From Publishers Weekly

In his Creasy Award-winning debut novel, Body Politic, Johnston introduced a near-future EdinburghAa city-state dystopia modeled on Plato's Republic. In this follow-up novel, Johnston's Edinburgh is almost perfectly realized, while his maverick sleuth, Quintilian Dalrymple, is as at home here as Marlowe in L.A. or Spenser in Boston.This heavily regimented society (its citizenry enjoys no TV, no literature except approved classics and no renegade music such as rock or blues) ironically relies on the decadent entertainment it provides the international tourist trade. By using Orwellian controls, the City Guardians have created an almost crime-free environment. For the first time in two years, on New Year's Eve 2021, a murderer strikes in Edinburgh, slashing the throat of Roddie Aitken, a young Supply Directorate delivery man. Aitken had sought Dalrymple's help a few days earlier because a hooded man with a knife chased him home late one night. It gets even more personal when Dalrymple assumes control of the investigation and has to report to the guardians, who need his expertise as much as they despise his attitude. And what is the mysterious "Bone Yard" the guardians are talking about? Johnston transforms Edinburgh into a nightmarish and malignant stage, on which his blues-loving, wisecracking hero walks the walk and talks the talk perfectly. Brilliantly offbeat metaphors and fascinating characters reinforce the promise implicit in the author's first novel. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; 1st edition (August 11, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312202806
• ISBN-13: 978-0312202804
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,973,639 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A real cool twist on the detective novel, March 6, 2002

By 

J. Jordan "Editor of Crimespree Magazine" (milwaukee, wi United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bone Yard (Hardcover)

Mr. Johnston's series takes place just a bit in the future, in Edinburgh. And the future he envisions here is not all that bright. But it is darn interesting. The protaganist is a free lance detective who works for a system that he doesn't believe in, and that doesn't like him. But they do need him. Quint is an outsider, even though his parents were behind the new government.

In this book, bodies are found with tapes stuck inside them. And since most music is outlawed.... well only an outlaw, or in this case outsider would recognize the music.This gives Quint an edge in investigating the crimes.

The story is well thought out, and the futuristic world portrayed in the books seems real. And the mystery writing is solid. Quint is a detective from the same school as Rebus, Amos Walker,and Harry Bosch. A bit of a smart [alec], cynical, self doubting. But also, very good at what he does.

This is a very entertaining read and well worth your time.

Jon

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great series!!!!!, November 26, 2001

By 

J. Jordan "Editor of Crimespree Magazine" (milwaukee, wi United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bone Yard (Hardcover)

The Bone Yard is the second book in this series from Paul Johnston. The first was titled The Body Politic. The series is set in Edinburgh, Scotland. In the 2020's. The general run down is, the world has gone to hell, and the city has closed itself off. The allow tourism, which is the source of income. The city is ruled by a group of people known as The Council. There is also a police group known as The Guardsmen. Our hero, Quintilian Dalrymple, is a former guardsman who now operates as a detective for hire.

Quint is approached by a citizen who is being followed/stalked, and Quint doesn't think much of it. He promises to look into it just to make the guy happy. Of course mysteries being what they are, the guy turns up dead. And it's then that the story kicks in. The council brings him in to find the killer. He asks for and is given the assistance of a guardsman named Davie who is also a freind of Quint's. Together they investigate the murder, which turns into murders. Along the way there are illegal drugs, strange deaths, and people hiding the truth.

The book is a great read. Social commentary mixed in by way of Quint's outlook on the future city, and who runs it. The story is tight and the investigative work believable. Quint is a hardboiled detective typical of this fiction and fun because of it. The book wraps everything up in a wonderful ending that left me wanting more. Which I will soon have, as I have ordered everything available by this author.

Jon Jordan

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars entertaining futuristic science fiction tale, July 15, 2000

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bone Yard (Hardcover)

The independent city-state of Edinburgh trained a new group of guardians who run a much tighter ship. The locals dub them the "iron boy scouts" for their zeal to supervise everyone's activities. The city has some economic troubles caused by troubles in other parts of the world such as a nasty flu epidemic in Asia and the Russian Mafia tossing warheads into the Middle East.

On January 1, 2022, detective Quintilian Dalyrmple visits a potential client Roddie Aitken, but finds Roddie's sexually mutilated corpse with a cassette tape of Clapton playing the Blues inside the corpse. Other brutal murders follow with their own tapes. Quint and his partner investigate the killings, not yet realizing the peril they will soon face as they close in on THE BONE YARD.

The sequel to the award winning BODY POLITIC, THE BONE YARD is an entertaining futuristic science fiction tale. The story line centers on Quint and Davie's inquiries into the vicious killings in the midst of 2021 Edinburgh. The background is fully developed so that the city-state has a real feel to it with references to twentieth century music adding to the luster. The who-done-it will please readers of future mysteries, as the prime plot is clearly fun to follow. However, the charcaters, even Quint, seem flat as ice so that anyone who failed to read the first book never fully becomes attached to anyone. Still Paul Johnston provides a luscious landscape that brings his audience into a different society that makes for a pleasant visit solving a series of brutal homicides.