Detective Jon “Bones” Sullivan fights to simply make through each day. Recovering from physical and emotional wounds tied to a shootout that left his partner dead, day-to-day is the best he can do. Then he is confronted by the specter of death, another loss in his police family, and the return of a woman he let go.
Instead of rolling over, Bones dives head-first back into his job to preserve his sanity.
However, neither Candace Weatherby’s return nor the specter of death is a coincidence. Both events are heralds of a killer on a mission of retribution and tribute played out across North Philadelphia.
Bones is Michael Cook’s fifth book in the FalconClaw series. In the course of five books he has explored a range of sub-genres, cozy to mystery to police procedural—and now serial-killer thriller. Book one was Frank and Penny, (based on actual North Philly detectives). Then we met the second generation Frank and Penny, (spiritual descendants in contemporary circumstances). Now the baton has been passed to Bones Sullivan.
“…Sylvia Langham walked down those steps and into oblivion.”
On heels of the afore-mentioned death in the family, Bones is thrilled to be reunited with Candace, even as she takes on a consulting job that puts her on the streets among the very people Bones hunts. All too soon, they are investigating the disappearance of a college student, snatched off the street.
Then visions begin to point Bones toward something more than random abductions and subsequent killings. The visions also suggest that he is now the hunted.
Only the dead know Brooklyn
Thomas Wolfe wrote his famous commentary on Brooklynites, and their borough, almost 100 years ago. Yet the idea is as fresh as morning coffee in Cook’s world. Both cops and robbers, good guys and bad are directed as much by lessons from the dead as they are by their own mortality.
If Candace Weatherby’s reception at the storied 39th is frosty, (they refer to her as Ms. Montreal) it is from a lack of history. Shared history, like shared loss and shared jeopardy, unite the men and women on the job. How do you trust someone who doesn’t know the city? How can she know the city if she doesn’t know the ghosts of the city?
Only the haunted know the ghosts of Philly’s streets. Haunted by generational abuse and unrelenting loss, Bones knows Philadelphia through and through. Which brings us to the star of the story.
The backbone (puns) character uniting all five books of Cook’s FalconClaw saga is Philadelphia. Rustbelt trauma and end-of-the-gilded-age reality dot each characters’ emotional landscape. History informs day-to-day life for the scrappy survivors in Nicetown and Franklinville. History permeates the 39th District.
North Philly carries the race-tension real story through every twist and turn of undead streets and the walking ghosts who populate them. Cook’s sense of place is only exceeded by his ability to subvert expectations. Place, tone, and tension make for a breakneck pace.
Note: this is not a cozy. The big-bad here is a serial murderer. The details are graphic. There are also accounts of sexual and domestic abuse.
With that stated, FalconClaw: Bones is also a lot of fun to read. As stated Cook will pivot your expectations like a judo-master. Also, as with previous books, there is a genre crossover that this review won’t spoil. However fans of Robert van Gulik’s Judge Dee will thoroughly enjoy Cook’s work.
He clearly had fun writing it and you’ll have fun reading it. Check it out here!
