A Thousand Bones by P.J. Parrish

A Thousand Bones by P.J. Parrish is the story of Joette Frye's early career as a police office when she worked in Echo Bay, MI. Louis Kincaid makes a very small appearance in the beginning and end of this novel, though almost all the action takes place years before she met Louis.

I made the mistake of reading this one after reading South of Hell, so I was a little confused because I didn't realize until later that they were released in the opposite order. The confusion wasn't enough to make me not understand this story. The plot was very much self contained, and had I plucked it from the middle of the series without any knowledge of Louis or Joe, I would have still thought it was a really good book.

The pacing of this one wasn't quite as fast as some of the others. I read A Thousand Bones in four days. I was still gripped by the plot, but the first half of the book took a lot more setup than the others I've read by Parrish so far.

I still give this one 5 stars ***** because the plot was very well done as was the characterization. Even though I didn't always agree with the characters' choices, I found myself liking Joe more and more by the end.

My one criticism is that I was confused by having a character named Mike and one named Mack. They're distinct enough names, but since they both have an M and a K in them, I found myself rereading a few random paragraphs trying to figure out what was happening because my mind was reading one name when the other name was actually written on the page.

South of Hell by P.J. Parrish

South of Hell by P.J. Parrish was a delight to read. Louis Kincaid and his girlfriend, Joette Frye, work together to solve a complex crime, a cold case, in Ann Arbor, MI. I got to see a new side to Louis Kincaid that I rather enjoyed as well as read a murder mystery that contained the perfect balance of the paranormal.

Usually I have a few reservations about mixing paranormal and murder mysteries, but I completely bought this plot. The book was spooky. It crossed the paranormal into reality in such a way that I found myself wondering, What if something like this really happened? I couldn't completely dismiss Amy's knowledge of the past and of her mother.

I liked the complexity of the characters. All of them, from Jake to Louis, Joe, Amy, and Louis' daughter were three dimensional to me. I couldn't get enough. I read this book in under a day also, because there was more than a need to know how it ended. I needed to know how it began.

I give this one 5 stars. *****.

Thicker Than Water by P.J. Parrish

Thicker Than Water by P.J. Parrish was a delightful read. It was everything I look for in a good murder mystery. It is the fourth book in the Louis Kincaid series. I couldn't put my mass market paperback down. There was no stopping the pages turning. I had to find out what happened, who the killer was, and how the two cases connected.

Louis works as a P.I. and is hired to investigate the murder of which Jack Cade is accused of committing. Louis digs up a different murder, the original one in which Jack Cade was convicted of killing Kitty Jagger. After Jack Cade is released from prison, Cade's attorney, Duvall, is murdered. Jack Cade is the primary suspect. Ronnie Cade, Jack's son, hires Louis to investigate. The deeper Louis digs, the more complicated the original murder of Kitty Jagger becomes, and the more relevant it is to the murder of Duvall.

I think one of the biggest reasons I fell in love with Thicker Than Water was that it is set in the 80s. There is no CSI effect, no easy DNA evidence. Louis has to solve the mystery the old fashioned way. I like how murder mysteries and thrillers put the puzzle together piece by piece. There is a fair amount of sleuthing in the novel, and the reader is able to sleuth right along.

Another aspect of Thicker Than Water that made me smile over and over again was the love relationship between Louis and Jack Cade's new defense attorney. There is a love/hate relationship in which Benjamin (the attorney's son) plays the perfect role to bring the two together. I wasn't sure if the book would end with the two players on a positive or negative note. Unlike so many books, I wasn't sure if I wanted to root for them to hook up or to stay at a professional distance. I wasn't sure they would be good for each other, and the way they interacted with each other kept Thicker Than Water interesting.

Thicker Than Water also very much made me want to read the whole series. I read it in two days. I'm sure I'll be picking up the first book and falling in love with the rest.

I wouldn't have picked up Thicker Than Water from the bookshelf had I not known anything about the author P.J. Parrish. The author is a two sister writing team writing under a pseudonym. Both writers have made appearances at Killer Nashville. One of them critiqued the first ten pages of a manuscript I submitted in 2008.

Then, this past year at Killer Nashville 2009, I had the privilege of hearing half of the P.J. Parrish team during several panels. It was the writing advice during the panels this past August that ultimately caused me to buy Thicker Than Water. After listening to several discussions on the craft of writing, I realized upon reading Thicker Than Water how tight the writing is.

I didn't feel like any of the pages were wasted information, fluff, or an information dump. The pacing of Thicker Than Water was perfect for me as a reader. It was a quick read, but the action didn't go by so fast as to leave me confused or like I missed anything. The details were easy to keep tucked under my arm as I read from cover to cover.

The only thing I can think of as a criticism is that having the protagonist have the last name Kincaid while the man accused of murder have the last name of Cade and the son who hired Louis also have the last name of Cade, is that this is one to maybe read rather than listen to in audio book version while driving. To see in print, it was clear, but if I had been watching traffic and hearing Kincaid and Cade over and over again, the plot might have gotten a little confusing.

I give this one five stars. *****