After her first appearance in Lost Hills, rookie Detective Eve Ronin returns in Lee Goldberg’s Bone Canyon, an exciting thriller with cold cases, a dangerous conspiracy, and tension around every turn. After her almost-by-accident entrance into the homicide department of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department in Lost Hills, Eve still has a lot of colleagues unhappy with her for getting into the unit without “paying her dues.” Her new-found fame in the press has not helped the situation, but it seems to have affected everyone around Eve more than it has affected her. Eve genuinely cares about the job, about solving cases, and about justice. I liked her immediately.
In Bone Canyon, Eve is working with her soon-to-be-retired partner Duncan Pavone on a case they have just been assigned, following the wildfires in California. Skeletal remains have been found in areas of a canyon where the fires cleared out the brush. A large part of the story focuses on what the forensic anthropologist finds and conclusions he comes to about first one, then more, bodies found in the area. It reminded me of the first season of the series Bosch, where bones are found in an unexpected place and the excavation of those bones leads to more bones, which leads to cold cases, which ultimately leads to a deadly conspiracy.
Eve follows her gut instincts, which are usually, but certainly not always, correct, and she has a good strong partner in Pavone (who everyone calls “Donuts”). He has her back when she has to go out on a limb and look in directions no one wants her to look to find answers on some cold cases that did not receive any justice. When Eve worries about who she can trust in the department, she never has to worry about Donuts. In a book where even the reader will be looking over their shoulder, it was nice to have someone we (both Eve and the reader) knew we could rely on.
The action happens fast, and the investigation builds at a sometimes frantic pace with dangerous twists and turns around every corner. Goldberg is clearly a fantastic storyteller, and it stands to reason as he has written or produced dozens of excellent television shows like The Glades, Psych, and Monk. For those readers that believe they do not like police procedurals, the Eve Ronin series could definitely be the exception to that.
Bone Canyon is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
A cold case heats up, revealing a deadly conspiracy in a twisty thriller by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Goldberg.
A catastrophic wildfire scorches the Santa Monica Mountains, exposing the charred remains of a woman who disappeared years ago. The investigation is assigned to Eve Ronin, the youngest homicide detective in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, a position that forces her to prove herself again and again. This time, though, she has much more to prove.
Bones don’t lie, and these have a horrific story to tell. Eve tirelessly digs into the past, unearthing dark secrets that reveal nothing about the case is as it seems. With almost no one she can trust, her relentless pursuit of justice for the forgotten dead could put Eve’s own life in peril.
