Customer Reviews

Only Flesh and Bones (Dead Letter Mysteries)

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ONLY FLESH AND BONES is the strongest book yet in the excellent series of Em Hansen mysteries written by Sarah Andrews. While it has some exciting action scenes, it is essentially a probe inside the minds of the well-developed characters, centering on Cecelia, the troubled daughter of a Denver oil tycoon who may have repressed memories that would lead to the unraveling of the mysterious death of her mother. Love, revenge, and international deals in the multi-millions combine to create a web of intrigue that Em, a petroleum geologist by training, but a private investigator by force of circumstance, must use all her analytical skills -- and sheer grit and gumption -- to unravel. While this book would provide a very gripping introduction to the Em Hansen series, I urge fellow readers who are unacquainted as yet with this scrappy, independent young woman to begin at the beginning, with TENSLEEP (1994) which introduces you to Em as a young woman mud-logger on a Wyoming oil rig, deep in a macho ambiente and getting into trouble investigating possible foul play. Then continue to A FALL IN DENVER (1996), where Em finds herself in a staff geologist job for a big oil company, and once again immersed in intrigue and foul play. And, finally, in MOTHER NATURE (1997), where Em, drawing on her geology and environmental skills, investigates the mysterious death of a powerful Senator's daughter through beautifully drawn Northern California scenes. All these volumes are informed by the fact that the author, Sarah Andrews, is herself a geologist, and clearly loves the natural beauty of the scenes she describes. I feel that this background will make ONLY FLESH AND BONES even more enjoyable, besides providing you with many hours' of great entertainment.

Josiah "JC" Menkin leaves Denver to visit his former employee, geologist Emily Hansen to plead with his former employee to help him with his teenage daughter, Cecilia. The teen has blocked out the trauma of witnessing the murder of her mother, Miriam. Em, an unemployed geologist and part time amateur sleuth reluctantly agrees to try to help Cecilia because she has always liked the teen.

Em convinces herself that in order for her to help Cecilia she needs to learn what really happened to Miriam. She begins to investigate the deceased's background and the murder. Em soon places her own life in jeopardy due to the investigation taking her to a sidebar involving cocaine smuggling. If Em is not careful, her curiosity could ultimately lead to her own death.

ONLY FLESH AND BONES is a refreshing amateur sleuth tale due to the introspective yet extroverted Em and Chandler (a refreshing charismatic criminal, who hopefully will reappear in a future Hansen novel). The novel contains a good who-done-it filled with lots of good humor (especially targeted is the psychiatry business). Sarah Andrews has developed an endearing protagonist, whose appearances are worth reading by fans of amateur sleuth mysteries.

Harriet Klausner Harriet Klausner

The thing I found most intriguing about the Sarah Andrews series is the way the author hooks geologic themes within a mystery. For example, Tensleep centers around the drilling of an oil well, Faultline centers around seismology.

Flesh and Bones is a wonderful story, and has some of Sarah Andrew's best character development. My only disappointment was the lack of the geologic theme.

Flesh and Bones begins with a voyeuristic look into the life of a Mariam Menkin. Mariam was a baby boomer who betrayed both her sex and the sixties to marry a "nice guy." In this work, we find scattered pieces of Mariam's diary and gradually glue together the pieces of how and why she was murdered.

The book brings us on a tour of Wyoming and Colorado as Em Hansen digs up clues in Douglas, Denver and Saratoga Springs. We meet good and bad cattle ranchers and some suspicious activities at oil companies.

If you are reading the Em Hansen series for the geological themes; you can skip this one. Even in the overall development of the Em Hansen character, Only Flesh and Bones plays a less important role than the other works. If you have limited time for reading, I would read all the other novels first.

I like Em Hansen because she is smart. I also enjoyed this book. On the downside, however, some of her behavior in this book does not make human sense -- it seem outright nutty. The author herself makes clear that this is intentional on her part in the last few pages; clearly it is an emerging factor in Em's character. While I'm not sure i believe in it, it does make the books interesting.

A mystery long on character and short on plot. The relentlessly self-deprecatory Em Hansen, again between geology jobs, returns for an even more languid run in the oil patch. Not a suspense or puzzle whodunit, these have become novels where I wonder whether Em will ever look up from her indecisions and sorrows to see the villain and dangers encroaching on her, and driving her by circumstance.

Em hardly has a case for the first half of the book, and is conflicted over accepting it from a lecherous former boss (husband to the victim) in order to help the deeply troubled teenager who is his daughter. Entertainingly diverse character elements include skewering unfriendly psychologists, hard-scrabble ranchers, a cold mother, teenage hostility, an unassertive boyfriend, many nasty men, and the clever device of dear-diary revelations. After three successful previous cases in this series, I'd think Em would be more confident and entrepreneureal by now, rather than still obsequiously begging for a job from the smarmy, patriarchal bosses around whom she still orbits.

Andrews is a skillful writer, strong on the emotional atmosphere and physical environment, but ultimately bleak. Never brisk, Andrews' stories linger on Em's exasperating diffidence, spunky whining, fumbles, and frustrating attempts to communicate and connect with opaque, mean, or joyless others. While a romantic author, Andrews never descends to romance novel cliches. After the intriguingly different TENSLEEP and its follow-ups, I found this book too easy to put down. Nevertheless, these Em Hansen novels do remain in mind long after more active stories are forgotten.