Review – The Bones Will Speak

In The Bones Will Speak, book two in the “Gwen Marcey” suspense series, the author uses both fact and fiction to pen a riveting account of a man “with a penchant for torture.” The faith-based fiction story features murder, a serial killer, a lovable dog named Winston, a forensic artist named Gwen, her best friend Beth and Gwen’s fourteen-year-old daughter Aynslee.

The serial killer, who believes he’s God’s executioner, is based on the real life of confessed serial killer Robert L. Yates Jr. who lived with his wife and children in Spokane, WA. The author was “one of the courtroom artists” at Yates’s trial in 2000, a man influenced by radical groups such as Phineas Priesthood, the Christian Identity movement and Aryan Nations. The author’s father, then director of the North Idaho Regional Crime Lab, was wounded by members of the Aryan Nations which gave her a special interest in the case.

The fictionalized account opens with Gwen Marcey, recent divorcee, cancer survivor and expert forensic artist for the Missoula, Montana police department chasing her very large dog to retrieve what she thought was “road kill.” Winston, a delighted Great Pyrenees eager to play “crouched, wagging his tail,” taunting her before he again “snatched his prize and shook it.”

That’s when Gwen saw the “sightless eye-sockets” of a human skull with a “neat bullet hole in the forehead” and a chilling murder mystery wrapped in heart-pounding suspense begins. Gwen couldn’t know the skull Winston found would soon lead to another young girl in a nearby cabin who looked “uncannily like Gwen’s daughter,” a girl who had been tortured and left for dead.

Soon more bodies would be found and Gwen would learn a serial killer who believed in a “race-not-grace model of salvation” stalked her. A man who called her a “race traitor” because of a previous Neo-Nazi case she’d worked on whose crimes stretched from Montana to Oregon and Washington.

The book is written from Gwen’s point-of-view and is a clean read without overt sex, violence or language from an author I hadn’t read before, but now intend to watch for. While faith, prayer and forgiveness are a part of the story they are essential to the plot as are the subtle touches of humor throughout. Although part of a series, “The Bones Will Speak” is also a stand-alone title with cliff-hanger chapters and a completely unexpected conclusion with a book that demands to be read in one sitting. Fans of TV shows like Criminal Minds, CSI and NCIS will enjoy The Bones Will Speak.

Carrie Stuart Parks, internationally known forensic artist and award-winning fine artist teaches forensic art to law enforcement and civilians in Canada and across the U.S. Her background gives her a unique view of crime, criminals and crime scenes she puts to good use in The Bones Will Speak, book two of the “Gwen Marcey” suspense series.

“When Death Draws Near,” book three, releases August 2016 this time with Gwen in pursuit of a serial rapist among Pentecostal Snake handlers in the Appalachian Mountains.