Bone Machine [Hardcover]

I enjoyed immensely and sparred with a fellow reviewer over the first novel in a series " The Mercy Seat". I thought that it was fresh and original, dark and gritty, without desperately trying to scare or provoke. To my surprise and annoyance this, the second novel featuring Joe Donovan and his crew, is much less impressive. The tired, serial killer plot, and extremely poor research, just ruined it for me. If you pick characters from Kosovo, please do not give them Croatian names. It is like having a Swede named Pedro Gonzales. It is not enough to jump on a, so trite bandwagon of wars in former Yugoslavia. You actually have to learn a few facts before writing. If you don't you look foolish and underprepared. Not an easy thing to forgive.

While a book first published in 2007 does not seem like a common choice for a book review I challenge you to name one book by Martyn Waites. Stop Googling. If you named one you are likely from England, if not, you are like everyone else who is missing out.

Bone Machine is one-part To Catch a Serial Killer and one-part Public Service. The Historian captures his prey, young attractive women, who he ritualistically rapes and tortures, but not before he sews their eyes and mouth shut. His motives are left unknown for 450-pages, but once the dots are connected it is a rather dark dive into psychosis. His victims of course lead the police, who like most novels are portrayed as bumbling alcoholics and only have sights set on an arrest, not stopping a killer.

Newcastle private investigator Joe Donovan leads a gang of misfits on a case that leads them straight into the heart of the murder investigation. Donovan is the central character to Waites P.I. series, similar to America's Alex Cross series in many ways.

While I compare him to Patterson because of the overall type of crime portrayed in his story, Waites is clearly unique as a noir writer and seen as anything but a rip off.

While the book takes you on a colorful descriptive journey throughout Newcastle, England I only have one reservation with the book. The story fo the Historian is the main background of the book, but much of Joe Donovan's crew is searching for and defending a woman sold into the international sex trade who can ID a wanted war criminal. Waites ultimately connects the two cases, only very loosely through a minor character that really could have been anyone. It almost comes together as a curious coincidence of chance rather than a major connection of crime.

What it really amounts to is two very good short stories tied into the same book with the investigative team handling them at the same time. Instead of two independent short stories, Waites unfortunately makes this a book with 100-pages of intense introduction of both crimes and 100-pages of non-stop conclusion with 300-pages in the middle trying to piece together two different story arcs that grow slow and stagnant at times. Had it been a collection of two separate 250-page stories they would have been a much faster read and more enjoyable saga. Though crossing story arcs seem to be Waites writing style so I don't expect that to change in futue.

As much as the genetic fussing of two stories may have seemed negative it really had little effect on my enjoyment of the story, more so how much the book gripped me. Waites offers fans of James Patterson a deeper and more descriptive read, if you have read Patterson you know exactly what I mean. But you will find in Waites work the same dark and brutal crimes that Patterson frequently explored in his earlier Cross novels.

There are several other books in the Joe Donovan Thriller line and I have already checked two out of the local library. I highly recommend checking out his work, but I will drop one follow-up caveat. Be ready to open your mind to a different culture, as much as England is our neighbor they still have a different culture at times. Be ready to learn some new phrases, accept alternate spellings and be willing to research a bit of government process to fully understand the book, or you can just read over the confusing terminology and accept it for what it is, different. But if cops without guns, misspelled pyjamas and futbol are going to make you gripe then stay in your own secluted world that crime can not happen outside of America in a novel.

In Newcastle, the body of the mutilated Ashley Malcolm was found in a burial ground. Her eyes and mouth were sewed shut apparently when she still lived and cuts are all over her body. DS Turnbull and DI Nattrass believe her boyfriend Michael Nell killed her, as he has a history of violence against women. Janine Stewart thinks otherwise although she knows her client is a flash tempered lout. She refuses to believe he would perform a ritual killing; if Michael murdered his girlfriend she would be battered not stitched. Michael also claims an alibi.

Janine hires Joe Donovan to affirm Michael's alibi. The case seems simple to Joe until he and his team start tracking the alibi. This leads them to an evil world where vicious thugs run a child-trafficking ring and a prostitution ring with kids as the merchandise. Shook to his core, Joe still wonders what happened to his six-year-old son who vanished three years ago and could have been for sale by these punks. Soon a second death occurs as the serial killing Historian taunts the cops with clues from the city's heritage.

Though the culprit comes out of serial killer casting, BONE MACHINE is a tense gritty Noir that deeply explores human trafficking to the point that the hero and the Historian are left out much of the first half of tale. Readers who appreciate an extremely dark crime thriller that looks at the evil people do to those vulnerable is interred in their bone marrow will want to read the BONE MACHINE and other Donavan thrillers like MERCY SEAT, not reviewed by me.

Harriet Klausner

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