The Bone Keeper: A Novel

by Luca Veste

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Built around the childhood fear of monsters, this urban legend is for adults now, though it will take you back to a time when you believed in the monsters that surely couldn’t be real, could they? Terrifying, dark and infinitely thrilling, this serial killer story is great for fans of the horror space.

A chilling psychological read, for fans of serial killer thrillers that asks the question: What if you found out the figure that haunted your nightmares as a child was real?

He'll slice your flesh. Your bones he'll keep.

The Bone Keeper's coming. And he'll make you weep.

Twenty years ago, four teenagers went exploring in the local woods, trying to find the supposed home of the Bone Keeper. According to lore, victims are lured into his lair, never to be seen again. Only three returned.

Now, a woman is found wandering the streets, horrifically injured, claiming to have fled the evil urban myth. Detective Louise Henderson must convince skeptical colleagues that this urban myth might be flesh and blood.

And then a body turns up.

For fans of C.J. Tudor and Riley Sager, The Bone Keeper is a haunting suspense novel of old legends, past demons, and all the things that go bump in the night.

"A well-crafted, deliciously unsettling blend of police procedural and horror folklore that shares appeal with John Connolly's and Lauren Beukes' thrillers."—Booklist

"Like the scariest urban legend from your childhood all grown up, The Bone Keeper is spine-tingling, hair-raising entertainment."—Abby Endler, Crime by the Book

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781492671305
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	02/05/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	159,885
File size:	911 KB

About the Author

Luca Veste is the author of The Bone Keeper, as well as other novels. He is a writer of Italian and Scouse heritage, married with two young daughters. He studied psychology and criminology at University in Liverpool.

Editorial Reviews

12/24/2018

Set in Liverpool, England, this formulaic thriller from Veste (the Murphy and Rossi novels) centers on a legendary bogeyman known as the Bone Keeper, who slices off the flesh of his victims and keeps the bones. A decade or more earlier, two girls and two boys seek out the Bone Keeper in a dark tunnel, the being’s supposed lair. They become scared and flee the tunnel, but one boy doesn’t make it out. In the present, Det. Constable Louise Henderson and her partner, Det. Sgt. Paul Shipley, investigate the case of Caroline Rickards, whom they interview in the hospital. Caroline, who has been attacked by someone who sliced the skin off multiple parts of her body, asserts that the Bone Keeper is real and responsible for her injuries. Her vague memories make reconstructing exactly what happened to her difficult. The plot follows well-worn grooves to its foregone conclusion and includes stock elements such as a lead who’s hiding dark secrets. Veste offers readers nothing they haven’t already seen before. Agent: Philip Patterson, Marjacq Scripts (U.K.). (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"A solid sense of place, a looming sense of menace: a frequently gripping read." — Kirkus Reviews

"A well-crafted, deliciously unsettling blend of police procedural and horror folklore that shares appeal with John Connolly’s and Lauren Beukes’ thrillers." — Booklist

"Veste turns a traditional procedural on its head in this hair-raising story, injecting it with a dose of terrifying urban legend...Gritty and grim, THE BONE KEEPER is a slow-burner that will keep you immersed - and thoroughly creeped out. " — Crime By The Book

From the Publisher

2018-11-13

Veste's moody procedural tells the story of a pair of Liverpool detectives tracking a killer influenced by local mythology.

Louise Henderson, the investigator at the heart of this novel, is a detective with secrets. She keeps some from her partner, DS Shipley; when the book opens, she's also grappling with moments of sudden and inexplicable terror that leave her unsure of their origin and unsettled by their impact on her. Soon, the detectives take up the case of a woman who escaped a deadly attack—and who believes it was the work of the title character, a local legend who may be a murderer, a supernatural creature, or something else entirely. Not long after that, a dead body shows up, which suggests a connection to an earlier death, but a host of loose ends hang for the detectives to piece together—and there's also the matter of a series of flashbacks set years earlier, when a teenager vanished. How these seemingly disparate elements connect—sometimes linearly, sometimes via well-made twists—leads the novel to its conclusion. Veste's slow-burning approach works well, sustaining the sense of general wrongness that gives the narrative so much atmosphere. There are a few heavy-handed moments here and there. "They thought they knew evil. They had no idea" is perhaps the most flagrant example; as this book is either about a serial killer or an urban legend come to life, that sense of menace is already built in to the narrative well enough. But the conclusion is largely satisfying, playing well off the dynamics Veste established over the course of the story.

A solid sense of place, a looming sense of menace: a frequently gripping read.

Kirkus Reviews