Sleeping Bones
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
LAPD Detective Kate Delafield has a new, iron-willed female lieutenant—a tough new partner who may turn out to be a much-needed ally. She also has a dangerous new case.
A reclusive old man has been brutally slain at the La Brea Tar Pits. The unusual investigation could uncover the truth of humanity’s ancient past, and at the same time expose the corruption and violence of the present. And everyone involved—from an alluring scientist with a dark secret to a treacherous CIA officer with his own agenda—is suspect.
With more at stake than just a pile of bones, Kate has to gather together the pieces of a timeless puzzle, and make sure they all fit—before a remorseless killer decides to make her a part of history...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lambda Award-winner Forrest seems to have lost some of her luster in her latest Kate Delafield mystery (after 1997's Apparition Alley). The usually cool Delafield, an LAPD detective, is unnerved when she and her new partner, rookie Joe Cameron, are called in to examine the body of well-known anthropologist Herman Layton, who has turned up dead at the famous La Brea Tar Pits with a puncture wound near his kidney. When Delafield and Cameron notify the victim's next of kin, they find out that Layton's daughter, Peri, is herself a world-renowned paleoanthropologist, whose career promises to surpass that of her mentors--the infamous Leakey family. The case takes an unusual turn after the discovery of a jawbone that resembles that of the two-million-year-old Peking Man, whose remains were lost nearly 30 years ago. Later, Delafield and Cameron learn of Herman Layton's involvement in the U.S. government's covert attempt to move the Peking Man from China for safekeeping after the Japanese invasion of WWII, an episode that left the adventurous anthropologist ostracized by his colleagues. The link between Peking Man and Layton's murder seems ironclad after CIA agent Nicholas Whitby appears and begins meddling in the case. Meanwhile, Delafield grapples with a shocking family secret revealed by her Aunt Agnes. Though the book has many action-packed scenes, Forrest fails to convincingly develop her various story lines, and several of the climaxes are far-fetched. Delafield remains an engaging protagonist, but the novel's turbulent events leave her, surprisingly, unchanged.
