Description de l’éditeur
A nature trek turns dangerous when the wilderness gives up its bones…
New Zealand's remote Milford Track seems the perfect place for forensic investigator Alexa Glock to reconnect with her brother Charlie, with whom she hasn't spent much time since they were kids. Their backpacking trip seems ill-fated from the start, though, when she must stop on the way to examine nine skeletons—most likely M?ori tribespeople—whose graves have been unearthed by highway construction. Before she opens the first casket, a M?ori elder gives her a dire warning: "The viewing of bones can unleash misfortune to the living. Or worse."
Though Alexa dismisses his words as superstitious, they soon come back to haunt her as the idyllic hike takes a sinister turn. First, Charlie is aloof and resentful of the time Alexa has spent at work. Then a rock avalanche nearly carries her away as it reveals the skeletal remains of someone who has clearly been stabbed to death. When a fellow hiker goes missing and is later found dead, Alexa has all she can do to focus on the science as she investigates two murders, while trying not to become the third victim.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Johnson's middling third mystery set in New Zealand and featuring American Alexa Glock (after 2020's The Bones Remember) finds Alexa, a dental forensics specialist, apprehensive about an upcoming backpacking trip on the South Island's Milford Track with her grouchy younger brother, Charlie. Alexa hopes to reconnect with Charlie, of whom she's seen little since they were kids. But soon after Charlie arrives from North Carolina, Alexa decides she must first examine nine skeletons, probably native Maoris, unearthed by a bulldozer during highway construction near Wellington, despite a Maori warning not to disturb human bones. No surprise, Charlie resents Alexa's dedication to her work. During the trek, after a fellow hiker goes missing and is later found dead, Alexa calls in all-business Bruce Horne, an Auckland detective inspector and potential romantic interest, for backup. The gorgeous scenery makes up only in part for shallow characterizations and motivations and often clumsily inserted red herrings. The real star here is New Zealand's Milford Track. Armchair travelers will best appreciate this one.
