Customer Reviews

Boneyard

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm not usually a fan of serial killer thrillers. But Michelle Gagnon writes fluidly, has a winning hero, sets up a realistic scenario, and drives the suspense up to a level reached only by top thriller authors. We root for her hero, Kelly Jones of the FBI, as she relentlessly tracks the murderer even while beset by a crew of squabbling locals and by her own too human doubts. Gagnon does a fabulous (and fabulously creepy) job of getting us in the heads of two very sick psychos. Make sure you read this with the lights on. Bravo.

3.5***

FBI Special Agent Kelly Jones survived her last case involving a serial killer. Now working in the Behavioral Sciences Unit she is called in to work another case after a Boneyard is found- a grave site with multiple victims. Heading to The Berkshires Kelly learns the bones have been found across state lines and must now supervise the investigation in both Massachusetts and Vermont with Detective Bill Doyle and Investigator Monica Lauer, who have nothing but disdain for each other. Soon it becomes clear that there is probably a second killer on the loose, a copy cat murderer. In addition Detective Doyle seems determined to thwart the investigation at every turn. As more bodies are found an intricate cat and mouse game begins, involving both killers and the police.

I have been reading a lot of historical fiction lately and just needed a break; I enjoyed The Tunnels, the first book in this series, so I picked up Boneyard. It did a good job of keeping me interested in a moderately entertaining serial killer mystery. The characters were pretty standard good guys versus really bad guys, but with the exception of the main characters Kelly Jones and Jake Riley most of the other characters don't have much depth. The dialogue in general was often stilted and plot lines are dropped without resolutions; one involving a young boy who we become attached to is left unanswered and I found that very annoying. There was quite a bit of graphic violence, not to be unexpected when dealing with this genre of books and there didn't seem to be much explanation of motives but the storyline was creepy enough to keep me interested and so I will be moving on to book 3, The Gatekeeper.

Overall this was a good but not great entry in this series.

If good writing is as important to you as a good storyline, then you will be disappointed in this work. The writing is disjointed in a way that defies a logical train of thought. Multiple perspectives are intertwined without clear distinction. I haven't seen this since college - Introduction to Creative Writing. There is a reason talented author's don't do this - it's not good writing. It disrupts the flow when a reader has to reread a paragraph to understand the references.

The pace of this work is awkward as well. I realize that monitoring the forward progress of a mystery or threiller can be a struggle for a writer because keeping a steady pace poses the challenge of too much mundane information while progressing to the next major scene, however, leaving out an entire week at the start of a murder investigation to avoid the mundane is just wrong.

The main characters here, "the good guys," range from pretentious, to unnecessarily hokey, to hollow. Normally, when the writing is this poor, I abandon the work within the hour.

I surprised myself this time and read the work to the end. Gagnon's villians were compelling enough to hold my interest. I wanted to understand their motivation. What motivates people to commit hideous crimes against other living souls? Once that became clear, I guess I just needed closure. I just needed to know that the good guys, no matter how ineptly the author created them, win in the end.

There were far too many editing errors in this work, the least of which was erroneous references, and the same adjectives appearing multiple times in a sentence. The repeated misuse of "him" and "her" no doubt stems from the intertwining of multiple perspectives. Apparently the editor was confused as well.

If you enjoy serial killer thrillers, I recommend the Smokey Barrett series by Cody McFadyen. Smokey and her team are much more entertaining - provided you can stomach the evil McFadyen's villains inflict upon their victims.

FBI agent Kelly Jones is looking forward to her first vacation in years. However the workaholic is asked by Special Agent in Charge Gerald McLarty to delay her leave when skeletal remains are found on the Appalachian Trail. She heads to the Berkshires where more corpses have surfaced.

Because the bodies are spread around with many jurisdictions involved, a battling taskforce filled with plenty of local yokels, state, county and Feds is created. However as she ignores the locals, Kelly begins to piece together the common thread between the victims; all are young and gay. The other thing obvious is the serial killer has been murdering men for years and still is active. Private security chief Jake Riley arrives to help his beloved Kelly on the investigation, but she knows the hunk is the one distraction she needs to avoid as she TUNNELS through a nasty serial killer case in which the cops are roadblocks.

The return of FBI Agent Kelly Jones (see THE TUNNELS) MAKES FOR AN EXHILARATING POLICE PROCEDURAL as she struggles with the petty jealousies of the task force members who all want glory and know who they work for; which is not her. The storyline is fast-paced and filled with plenty of non-stop action as Kelly and company work the case. The support cast, especially the prime task force members, seems genuine and Jake adds to the pressure on the heroine; while the killer is more shadowy, which embellishes the overall effect. Michelle Gagnon provides an entertaining serial killer thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Just finished Boneyard today and wanted to immediately post a review. This book got under my skin--Michelle's mind is DARK! She expertly threads several different points of view through the narrative, so you're always kept guessing, in the very best way. I was thoroughly impressed and can't wait to see her next novel in this series.

Often, after I have read a really great book, I've wondered why I had never heard of it or seen it being paraded around before. And so is the case with Michelle Gagnon's Bone Yard.

Splendidly written, absolutely captivating lead character and co-characters that demand as much attention as the lead. Why hasn't this book been shouted out from the rooftops?

In Bone Yard we follow FBI special agent Kelly as she's just about to leave for vacation (hoping for relief from the guilt of losing her partner) when she is called into to assist in a new case in the Berkshires. Bodies soon begin piling up, as does the suspense, all leading up to the thrilling end. There's everything here that you would expect in a real-world case too, jurisdictional bull, jerks on the local police force and a mystery that has been "allowed" to go on for over ten years.

I never read Michelle's first novel Tunnels, and while Bone Yard is perfectly fine as a stand alone read, I can only imagine it would have given more insight into Kelly and how she's arrived to this point in her life. A thankless job, a fear of commitment that possibly stems from the loss of her partner, and the beginning of questioning herself about what she does for a career.

Writing 101 dictates that you have characters that the reader will care about, and will want to continue to read about. Michelle does this perfectly, and in my opinion she now officially ranks up there with the likes of Stuart Woods and Clive Cussler. Like them, Michelle paints a picture so vivid, with a plot that's never too slow or boring, that the only accurate description that I can come up with is: effortless read.

- Dan.

This second book had me on the edge of my seat; it was an excellent follow up to the first. She just keeps getting better. I like the way the book ends and leads into the third book which I am just now beginning. Looks like we have another keeper for a great mystery/suspense author!

Cougar is about to go down a new path in his life, so he decides to hike the Appalachian Trail before he starts it. Along the way he gets separated from his hiking companion, so he's going it alone, and as he so does he finds a bear, or the bear finds him, whatever, the important thing is that the bear has decided to have a snack to go, and Cougar, and the two women he comes across find that the snack is, or once was human. And so starts the new Gagnon novel starring Kelly Jones F.B.I. agent, and this time she's solo, as all the other F.B.I. agents are otherwise occupied. Jones wants to wrap this case up as she was just about to go on vacation and meet her boyfriend Jake Riley, on leave from his job as head of security for his rich boss.

The trouble is that she's entering a killing field, and the killer is still active. There's also the problem with the fact that some of the bodies, or parts of the bodies, have been found in two separate jurisdictions and the investigating officers Detective Lieutenant Doyle and Lieutenant Monica Lauer get along like water and oil, with Jones caught in between the two bickering officers. She also finds herself having to babysit Dr. Howard Stuart, her version of "Bones", who just doesn't travel well.

Then things start to get complicated. Doyle is a grade-A dick, he's a sexist, an obstructionist, and because the victims are all homosexual males, he's anti-gay, voicing, many times, why should anybody care about their deaths? Then because this is a multi-person point-of-view novel, we find out that Doyle may be either fudging the investigation, or be involved with the deaths. The investigation then becomes more complicated as the investigators find out that they may be hunting two seperate murderers, the primary killer and a copycat. Gagnon lets us in on the fact that the primary serial killer is being stalked by the second murderer, who is trying to destroy the primary murderer by uncovering and copycatting the original's crimes. However the first killer is nobody to mess with. And into the whole mess, which keeps getting more and more complicated for Jones, parachutes her lover, the alpha dog Riley, who just wants to help.

This is Gagnon's second novel and again she shows no fear in using a complicated storyline to tell her story, and it is also a step up in graphic violence from her first novel. The identities of the killers will not remain a secret for long as Gagnon lets us all in on the secret as this novel is more of a cat and mouse game between the two killers, the killers and Jones, and Jones and Doyle who continues to become more and more of an obstructionist. Gagnon also repeats several gimmicks from her first novel, including having too much of what eventually turns out to be filler; and the use of red herrings to varied and uneven success. There is even a sub-plot where Stuart and Lauer develop some form of romance which just kinda flip-flops all over the place, and which doesn't come to any kind of resolution by the novel's end. Although you will learn more about it in Gagnon's fourth Kelly Jones novel.

In the end I liked this novel, and in the right hands, unlike the first novel, this could be made into a decent movie. This novel had a hell of an ending, and there was a great scene where one of the killers finds what is left of one of his only living relation, and the only person he loves and cares for, this scene almost had me feeling sorry for him. "Boneyard" was well worth reading, even if by the ending several major red herrings would just kinda de-rez into the ozone. Gagnon is a person to watch as after this she starts to tighten up her stories.

I have reviewed these The first book in the Kelly Jones series:

Kelly Jones #1: The Tunnels (Kelly Jones Novels)
Kelly Jones #3: The Gatekeeper
Kelly Jones #4: Kidnap & Ransom

and there is a Kelly Jones short story in the kindle anthology Fresh Kills, Tales from the Kill Zone which I haven't read.

Great story. Not only do we have a serial murderer but another who is following and messing with his quirky ways.

Local police bungling of procedures slows our detective down while all hell breaks loose around them.

I enjoyed the extra twist to this plot (which I won't mention because I don't want to spoil it). It wasn't the typical "bad guy", "good guy" story. However, I did find it fairly easy to figure out who the killer was.

The writing is very good, the plot intriguing. The story kept me interested and moved quickly.

Also, I did not personally find this book overly graphic in violence. It's a serial killer book, so you have to expect a certain amount of violence. However, I didn't find the descriptions over the top or difficult to handle.