A chilling mystery: "The Bones Will Speak" by Carrie Stuart Parks

Introducing "The Bones Will Speak" from CFBA. Read on for more info!

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing The Bones Will Speak Thomas Nelson (August 11, 2015) by Carrie Stuart Parks

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Carrie Stuart Parks is an award-winning fine artist and internationally known forensic artist. Along with her husband, Rick, she travels across the US and Canada teaching courses in forensic art to law enforcement as well as civilian participants. She has won numerous awards for career excellence. Carrie is a popular platform speaker, presenting a variety of topics from crime to creativity.

Animals have always been a large part of her life. Her parents, Ned and Evelyn Stuart, started Skeel Kennel Great Pyrenees in 1960. Carrie inherited the kennel and continues with her beloved dogs as both an AKC judge and former president of the Great Pyrenees Club of America. She lives on the same ranch she grew up on in Northern Idaho.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A killer with a penchant for torture has taken notice of forensic expert Gwen Marcey . . . and her daughter.

When Gwen Marcey’s dog comes home with a human skull and then leads her to a cabin in the woods near her Montana home, she realizes there’s a serial killer in her community. And when she finds a tortured young girl clinging to life on the cabin floor, she knows this killer is a lunatic.

Yet what unsettles Gwen most is that the victim looks uncannily like her daughter. The search for the torturer leads back in time to a neo-Nazi bombing in Washington state—a bombing with only one connection to Montana: Gwen. The group has a race-not-grace model of salvation . . . and they’ve marked Gwen as a race traitor. When it becomes clear that the killer has a score to settle, Gwen finds herself in a battle against time. She will have to use all of her forensic skills to find the killer before he can carry out his threat to destroy her—and the only family she has left.

If you would like to read the first chapter of The Bones Will Speak, go HERE.

The book can be purchased here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1401690459 

My review....

"The Bones Will Speak" is a chilling mystery, and more than once I found myself shuddering as I pictured the scenes that Gwen stumbles across. The scenes are filled with tension, a tension that slowly mounts as the story progresses, to the point that I had to remind myself to relax because I was so caught up in the story I was a bundle of nerves! The serial killer is just down right creepy, and at one point I thought I'd figured out who it was - but I was wrong.

Parks has done an excellent job at weaving together a believable, fast paced plot with characters that you will feel a definite fondness for by the end of the story. There were a couple of moments where I questioned if a professional would truly act in the way Gwen does in the story, but then I remembered that desperate people will indeed do desperate things, making unwise decisions along the way. Gwen really grows as a character over the course of the story, and I love the theme woven within the pages, one of  the power but also the difficulty of forgiveness. Gwen has to confront her lack of forgiveness for her ex-husband, and how this spills over into every area of her life. I myself have talked to so many people about the importance of forgiveness, and I know that this is something that challenges all of us in our Christian walk.

I quite enjoyed this second addition in the Gwen Marcey series, and am confident that other readers will also not only be entertained, but even be challenged by what they learn about forgiveness along the way. I award this story 4 out of 5 stars.

Book was provided courtesy of the publisher and CFBA for the purposes of this unbiased review.