Thirty-One Bones
A Novel
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4.2 • 5 Ratings
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Carl Hiaasen meets Tartan Noir in this comic crime caper set on the sunny Costa Blanca.
What Carl Hiaasen does for Florida and Elmore Leonard did for LA, Morgan Cry does for Spain's sun-splashed Mediterranean coast, where British expats and certain notorious criminals go to escape-slash-retire.
When Daniella Coulstoun's estranged mother, Effie, dies in Spain under suspicious circumstances, Daniella feels it's her duty to fly out for the funeral. Effie was the sole owner of the seedy expat pub Se Busca, whose faithful kept her in business for twenty years. Among them is a dangerous group of misfits who confront Daniella on her arrival, claiming that Effie stole huge sums of cash from them in a multimillion-euro property scam. They want the money back, and Daniella is on the hook for it.
When a suspicious Spanish detective begins to probe Effie's death and a London gangster hears about the missing money, Daniella faces threats on every front, including the promise of breakage to thirty-one of her precious bones. With no idea where the cash is and a seemingly impossible deadline, she has no choice but to fall back on her wits to solve the mystery in a world where she is out of depth and her very survival is at stake.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Daniella Coulstoun, the protagonist of the pseudonymous Cry's amusing debut, inherits the mess of a busted real estate scheme when her estranged mother, Effie, dies of a heart attack at Se Busca, Effie's pub in El Descaro, Spain, just as everything is beginning to go under. Daniella arrives in El Descaro after 20 years of minimal contact with Effie, hoping to attend the funeral and wrap up any loose ends quickly. She finds her mother's ex-attorney friend, George Laidlaw, to be mysteriously belligerent and soon discovers that George and other misfit expat patrons of Se Busca were involved with Effie in a property con that amassed €1.3 million that's now missing. The misled investors want their money, so George and company are desperate enough to threaten Daniella with having 31 bones broken by a local heavy, implication in the scam, or both. The appealing Daniella is clever enough to save herself, but not immune to the lure of life on the Costa del Sol. Readers who like clever, sun-drenched crime capers will find much to enjoy.
