I'm honestly sort of surprised by all the positive reviews on here. This book was poorly written, poorly researched, and barely qualifies as a mystery novel, much less a psychological thriller. The idea behind the book--a serial killer who removes all the bones from his victims--is an excellent one, but the book itself was poorly written. Spoilers ahead.THE TECHWhen I first read this, I thought surely this book must have been published in the late 90s. There was no way a book that relies this heavily on the internet and modern computers could be so off-base. As it turns out, the book was published in 2006. Some examples of the terrible tech in this book:1) The detectives use Netscape. By 2006, less than 5% of people on the internet used Netscape. A year after this book was published, its user share was so low, they stopped development and announced the browser was essentially dead. No one used Netscape in 2006.2) The author painstakingly has his middle aged detective hero describe to his younger lady sidekick--who despite being in her 30s, living in Manhattan and in 2006(!!) had apparently never used a computer before--how to use a search engine. Right down to describing how to open the browser, where to point and click, which search engines to use, and how to type things in. I could understand if this book had been written in 1997 when fairly few people owned computers. By 2006, pretty much all middle class, and many working class, folks had computers and internet access in their homes.3) Almost no one in this book has cell phones, either, and by 2006, my college stopped using land lines entirely because they were so infrequently used because EVERYONE had a cell phone. I can't figure out what Manhattan cop in 2006 wouldn't have had a cell phone.4) The 14-year-old hacker who basically finds the killer and figures out what his MO is (while New York's Finest is still trying to figure out how to run a search engine) proves her tech cred by showing the detectives a computer "vaccine" that will immediately fix any virus on any computer. That's not how viruses work (or how vaccines work, for that matter), and it makes you wonder if the author had even heard of anti-virus software in 2006. 5) "The land of hacking." There is no magical place you go to hack, especially not one that you get to by piercing some Matrix-like veil. This isn't how hacking works. The author clearly did so little research on this subject it was painful.6) ISPs and messageboards. The serial killer signs up for multiple ISPs to access their message boards in order to lure in his victims with cheesy personal ads. Clearly the author is only familiar with ISP-sponsored message boards, because you don't need to have multiple ISPs to access message boards on the internet, and the only reason you'd think this is if you were a late 90s-early 00s AOL user who didn't realize there was an internet beyond the AOL community. There's more to say about the tech, but a lot of this also works under the next category, so read on.THE DETECTIVE WORKNo wonder it took Driscoll months to find the killer. He--and all of his colleagues--were so inept, nothing but sheer stupidity on the part of the killer could have enabled the detectives to find him any faster. Even assuming there's a lot going on that isn't shared in the book (come the heck on), a lot of crucial detective work is missing. Some examples:1) They never search the victims' homes or seem to look in depth into their financial or phone records, internet search histories and e-mail accounts. It takes a 14-year-old girl to tell them they should have checked their victims' e-mail accounts (!!!!!!) after multiple women had already been murdered, and rather than get a search warrant to look at these things themselves, they rely on a 14-year-old's hacking skills to hack into the victims' e-mail accounts. Once they figure out the serial killer's handle and e-mail address, they never try to track him down using his IP address or by contacting his numerous ISPs for his billing information. It's maddening.2) They don't push any of the people they interview for more information. When they're talking to the first victim's husband, he says if his wife were having an affair, he would know, in this meaningful way, and the cops never follow up on that or ask more questions. There are couple of other examples, but basically, if the cops determine the person they're interviewing wasn't immediately responsible for the victim's death, they stop interviewing them. As if there is no other information to be gleaned.3) They follow up on individual leads for each victim without ever bothering to ask the question "how are the victims related?" They go after a tattoo artist related to the second victim as if he might be a suspect without ever really thinking about how he might be connected to the first victim, and they go after the boyfriend of the 3rd victim as if he might be the killer without bothering to question how he might have been connected to either of the first two victims. It's totally confounding. You obviously have one dude killing all these people. Why would people only connected with a single victim and no relationship with any of the others be a reasonable suspect?4) Rather than actually look at the victims' computers, they use the PD's computers to run searches on "bones" and "druidism" to try to find out more about the killer. As if the serial killer is going to be running a website called "HOW I KILL PEOPLE BY REMOVING ALL THEIR BONES IN A DRUID RITUAL", complete with his picture and home address. And then they print "reams of paper" filled with the stuff they find using search engines, even though none of those things are directly related to their investigation. *facepalm* What do they do with that paper? Presumably throw it in the trash, because it sure as shooting wasn't going to help them find their killer.5) They allow a 14-year-old to become deeply involved in their investigation. She even turns up at a sting operation where they are trying to catch the killer. It never occurs to any of these brilliant detectives that the killer might be wary that it's a set-up and stake out the situation before walking into a trap. And when the killer doesn't show up, it never occurs to them that the killer might have seen them, avoided the trap, seen the 14-year-old, targeted her, followed the cops to where they dropped her off at her home after they gave up on catching the killer, and then might make a move on her. The result is a 14-year-old gets picked up by the killer and left brain dead in a body cast. The main detective feels some fleeting guilt about it, but the girl's parents aren't suing so he's not going to dwell. WHAT THE HECK?!THE WRITINGThe biggest flaw in the writing is that the author has never heard the phrase "show, don't tell" and spends the whole book telling us what we're supposed to think about the characters and the situations, while the things the characters' actions never support what the author tells us. For example:1) While the cops are setting up the sting to catch the bad guy, one of the hero detective's underling basically says the detective is so good, he doesn't need luck. Which I think is supposed to make the detective look good, but in light of the fact of how badly the detective screwed up, including leaving a 14-year-old in a coma, it just comes off as excruciatingly bad writing. The author keeps telling us that Driscoll (the detective) is a great detective and everyone he works with him respects and admires him, but any sort of behavior that would actually justify anyone thinking he was a superlative detective never comes across in the writing. 2) Driscoll and his lady sidekick, Margaret (which, btw, it makes me furious that all the male cops are called by their last names, but his female partner is referred to by her first name the whole freaking book), are supposedly swept up in a romance with each other. And the characters TALK a lot about their feelings and how much they can't resist each other, but apart from one embarrassingly cheesy love scene where they share a candlelight dinner where the wind blows out not one, but two candles (*barf*), there's never any evidence they actually like each other. All their dialogue is direct and business-like, and you never get the feeling they are just dying to be together. At one point, the author has Driscoll envisioning himself making love to Margaret, and the author writes Driscoll lets the fantasy "consume" him. Then the very next sentence he takes a sip of coffee and goes back to work. ?!?! 3) All of the characters' back stories and prior relationships are not built up organically but are just plopped down beginning to end in long expositions. They read like character summaries a high school student would put together for a book report, not the natural unfolding of people's histories and connections. One character, Thomlinson, has his entire background dropped in a single chapter, so you know where he's from, what he's been like as a cop, and why Driscoll is his hero, totally out of joint from the rest of the narrative. It is completely jarring, and again, it TELLS us he has a great relationship with Driscoll without the author ever having to actually demonstrate they have that relationship. There's no authenticity, and it makes the progress of the narrative really clunky.Of course, the author's inability just to let the story unfold isn't the only problem. There's also the fact that the book gets completely derailed by the Driscoll-Margaret love story (which is so unbelievably boring), to the point that at times the book feels more like a romance novel (a completely chemistry-free romance novel) rather than a mystery.THE CHARACTERSUgh. Okay? Just ugh.1) Driscoll is so obnoxious. He's tall, good looking, wears designer clothing (on a cop salary?), and love French cuisine. Everyone admires and respects him. He was a doting father and husband. He has a lot of guilt about his wife's accident which has left her comatose. The man has no flaws. And that's boring as all get out.2) Margaret apparently is the victim of incest and abuse at the hands of her cop father. She never shows any sign of interest in Driscoll until she starts working this serial killer case with him. Driscoll's therapist inexplicably decides to diagnose and analyze her without ever meeting her and without her consent to Driscoll (so unethical!), and essentially tells Driscoll the only reason Margaret's interested in Driscoll is because she's working this case where she's reliving childhood trauma and she's looking for a father figure to replace her own sexually abusive father and has latched on to Driscoll for this reason. And instead of the therapist telling her he should leave Margaret alone and instead tell her to seek counseling, the therapist encourages Driscoll to take advantage of the situation and Margaret's psychological distress and try to build a relationship out of it. What the everlucking F#$@?!3) I was never able to piece together what made the serial killer tick. Something about Irish Catholic guilt and childhood abuse and Druid rituals? There are some loosely connected ideas, but the dots never really completely connect. I also can't figure out why any of the people who knew him as a child and knew he had some serious psychological issues and propensity toward violence, when they realized he was being suspected of murdering a bunch of women, didn't try to do something. I don't care how much you love someone. You don't let someone kidnap, torture, and murder innocent people. THE ENDINGIn the end, for all the emphasis on tech, what finally does the bad guy in is his own ego and a weird hunch the detectives get because of how he handled a patient (who was nearly one of his victims, but got away) in the hospital where he works. They couldn't track him down by searching his victims' e-mail accounts, finding his e-mail address, and tracking him back that way. Instead, they have to go on a "gut feeling" based on none of that tech stuff, put Margaret in a dangerous situation alone with a known serial killer, and hope to turn up something in the course of Margaret's "date" with a guy they're pretty sure is a psycopath. Yup. that's pretty much par for the course for this book.The whole thing ends on a boat with a helicopter and a fist fight. Of course. The bad guy gets shot and ends up disappearing into the water at night, but his body is never found. Gee, I wonder if there's going to be a sequel to this book. Everything about this book was awful. I only kept reading it because I was on vacation with friends, and my friends got a big kick out of my reading the particularly awful passages aloud to the group. It only gets 2 stars because it started out with a really good idea, and then quickly degenerated into a cliche, clueless mess. The only real mystery with this book is how it got published in the first place.
This was a fan-freaking-tastic book! I will be adding O'Callaghan to my list of fav authors. I loved his writing style, the way he developed the characters and gave us a glimpse into their past was fantastic. I loved John Driscoll the main character. The writing made us feel his pain, love, his fears. I believe we have a lot to discover about him and hope to do so in future books.This book is graphic, but it is about a seriel collector so it must be. I was not turned off by the descriptions instead it drove me to keep reading to find out what kind of pyscho was doing this. This is a must read for anyone who enjoys crime novels, suspense, or actually any book that is written at the superb level that Thomas O'Callaghan has displayed.
Do You like book Bone Thief (2006)?
This thriller was fast paced and more than a little gruesome. With short chapters and a serial killer versus dedicated detective it was hard to put down and I read it in 2 short days.Lt. John Driscoll is an emotionally bruised man. His wife and daughter were in a car accident six years earlier, his daughter died and his wife lays in a complete vegetative state. Driscoll pours all his emotion into his work. A serial killer is using NYC as his hunting grounds, killing women and removing all their bones, leaving just their destroyed bodies behind. Driscoll and his partner Margaret Aligante head up the task force put together to catch the killer. It was a fun read as John and Margaret put the clues together as they track down the killer, who the author reveals to the reader very early in the book. We also come to care about John and Margaret as they are drawn closer together and grapple with the morality of their mutual attraction and John’s obligations to his wife.This book was especially fun for me to read since it was set in NYC, Brooklyn, Far Rockaway and Long Island all places near and dear to my heart as a native New Yorker. I looked up the author online and he lives not too far from me, so that was a neat touch to read about all these places I know quite well.
—Linda
Lieutenant Driscoll has dealt with tragedy in his family when his wife and daughter were in a car accident, killing the girl and leaving his wife in a permanent vegatative state. It is only after several years of caring for his wife that he begins to think about other women but it makes him feel like a cheater. Now a serial killer is on the loose in New York City who not only kills women but removes their bones, head, hands, and feet. Several women have been murdered this way but the police can find no connection between them until a teenage girl starts helping by doing computer searches and hacking. Can they find the psycho before she gets hurt too?
—Jennifer
Great story! I like serial killer thrillers and this one is realy good. The villain is unique (and love bones, like me. I just dont´t like relationship between Driscoll and his colleague Margaret. Their, it felt like busines thing than romantic relationship, and their dialogues are so unnatural.
—Martina
