Ink and Bone by Lisa Unger

4 Stars

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep, she thought. But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep.”

Well what was a pleasant surprise! For some reason I thought a bazillion of my friends had read this, but it turns out only Jess has. I should probably go get a CAT scan or MRI at this point to find out what the hell is wrong with me. Anywho, I had never read Lisa Unger before (I actually also thought this was a debut because broken brain – whoops). I do, however, read a lot of mystery/thrillers and will admit that I have become pretty hard to please. Lately everything has seemed to be a knockoff of the latest Lifetime Movie of the Week (*cough Girl on the Train cough*) so I was more than happy with the end result of Ink and Bone.

The main character here was a young woman named Finley. Finley isn’t like everyone else – she sees dead people . . . and so does her grandmother Eloise. Finley lives in a place called The Hollows, which just so happens to be the place where a little girl went missing while on vacation with her (dysfunctional) parents. The girl’s parents have never given up hope in finding her, even after months of searching. Their Hail Mary pass is a private detective, who just so happens to occasionally work with Eloise. However, once Finley starts hearing the “squeak-clink” noise it becomes clear she is the one who might be able to help solve the crime.

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooh doggy. This was mystery/thriller just the way I like it. Most of the time the “whodunit” part is fairly easy to figure out, so I enjoy knowing who the bad guy is/having a dual timeline type of narrative and the psychic aspect was done well instead of coming off campy like it easily could have. There was even a little twist-a-roo that I didn’t see coming. To top it all off, although this is not marked as part of a series it could easily become one – AND I WOULD ACTUALLY READ #2! Well done, Ms. Unger, you get almost all of the Stars.