Tall Bones

by Anna Bailey

A violent war vet father, a distant, chain-smoking mother, two brow-beaten brothers, a best friend with a missing father, a fire-and-brimstone preacher, a sheriff in the pocket of a wealthy businessman, an untrustworthy out of towner and a missing girl…   Written by an English author after working in a bar in rural Colorado, Tall Bones is as gripping as it gets!  Gillian Flynn meets Twin Peaks according to the blurb.  I couldn’t put it down. 

Seventeen-year old Emma leaves her friend Abi at a party in the woods.  “Come on Em, let me live a little, huh?  I’ll be fine. Promise.”  But she’s not fine… Abi has disappeared and the small town of Whistling Ridge, Colorado is splintering apart exposing long-held grudges, resentment and distrust.

“By the end of the week, Abigail’s face will grin emptily from a hundred flyers tacked to telephone poles and church billboards, flapping in the Rocky Mountain breeze.  Samuel Blake will go out into the forest with the police department, crying his daughter’s name into the trees.  Noah will scrub stains off his jeans until his fingers are raw, and Emma will hide the box of bleach under her bed.  Dolly, sucking on her cigarettes, will knead the flaky flesh of her scalp, and stare at the big cross hiding the hole in the wall, afraid that, now, all the wrong things will come out.”

Homophobia, misogyny and racism are at the heart of this harrowing novel – London Sunday Times

With its twists and turns throughout, Tall Bones is a gripping psychological thriller, packed with guilt, shocking secrets and complex family dynamics, all played out in the oppressive claustrophobia of small town America. What happened to Abigail Blake remains at the heart of the book but it’s the small tragedies played out in the lives of the others that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading this haunting and soul-stirring novel. – Books Up North