The Talking Bone
A Novel
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3.8 • 6 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“Rene Denfeld reminds us that storytelling remains one of the most powerful means we have of confronting our darkest human impulses and sometimes overcoming them.”—Washington Post
From the revered bestselling author, a compulsive, page-turning thriller inspired by her real life work exonerating innocents, a novel that asks how far we’ll go in our pursuit of the truth—an emotionally rich, luminously written book about evil and people trying to do good in the world.
Ruby Spencer is known as “the exonerator.” Her job as an investigator is to free innocent men from death row, and she’s good at what she does. What many people don’t know is that she spends her time finding missing women, too. The orphaned daughter of an orphaned mother, Ruby feels a natural affinity for those who have been mistreated by the world at large.
Her newest case takes her to Georgia, and involves a man set to be executed in two weeks. What begins as a routine exoneration unexpectedly sends Ruby down a winding path. Pursuing the truth, she begins to uncover crimes that lead to startling revelations about her own life.
With time running out, will Ruby’s search for answers ultimately lead her to danger?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Georgia PI Ruby Spencer investigates the case of Mitchell Brown, a reserved Black man on death row for the murder of a gas station attendant whose body was never found, in this affecting mystery from Denfeld (Sleeping Giants). Ruby, shaped by her tough upbringing in Portland, Ore., and her mother's disappearance when Ruby was a teenager, rigorously pursues evidence that Mitchell was wrongly convicted. Meanwhile, Mitchell—who was raised by his blind grandfather, Solemn—remains troubled by his own mother's disappearance when he was young. As Mitchell's execution date looms, Ruby retraces his steps in the days before the crime, pores over newspaper archives and police records, and probes the prejudices and hidden dynamics of his insular Southern community. Alongside that investigation, Denfeld offers evocative glimpses into Ruby's investigations of other missing women—including a sheriff's wife—each of which enriches the author's explorations of systemic neglect and familial loss. Eventually, Ruby creates a map studded with colored flags for each missing woman, a haunting symbol of the region's epidemic of disappearances. Denfeld's potent prose balances lyricism with narrative momentum, and she ushers the proceedings to a stunning conclusion. Fans of Attica Locke and Laura Lippman will find a lot to like.
Customer Reviews
Oh come on…
I mean it pulled me along but the ending was far too convenient and far fetched. Very disappointed