Looking For a Good Book

Rushmore McKenzie might just be my favorite literary P.I.  I definitely look forward to a McKenzie book more than any other mystery detective … and I like Longmire and Cork O’Connor and Will Trent and …!

McKenzie is approached by Angela Bjork, an old friend, with a request – help her find her missing dinosaur head.

Angela was working in the Southeast corner of Montana excavating for dinosaur bones on private land, but on behalf of a university. She and her team made an extraordinarily unique discovery, finding not only the skull of an Ankylosaurus, but a complete skeleton! Such a find is so rare that the skeleton could be worth upwards of $6-million.

Transporting something like this could only be done in pieces and the team carefully prepared and bundled the skull first for transportation to the University of Minnesota, but the moment the bundle was put on the truck the group was attacked and the truck hijacked and now the skull is gone.

McKenzie recognizes that this has to be an inside job but since some time has passed and the local police didn’t do the best job of looking for the criminals, finding the hijackers and getting the Anylosaurus skull returned is going to be a challenge.

The owner of the land (and technically the owner of the dinosaur) wants it returned at any cost, and is even willing to pay a ransom for it. He’s in ill health and wants to see it returned before he passes away.

This is just the kind of task a Robin Hood like McKenzie lives for.

This was a lot of fun. Unlike some McKenzie novels, where McKenzie’s life seems to be in imminent danger at every turn, this story had a much lighter tone.

The story has a couple of parts to it – figuring out who might have taken the skull, especially knowing it almost had to be an inside job (how else would anyone have known the exact moment it was on the truck?); where is the skull now; how to get in touch with the thieves; how to get it returned.

Like a number of McKenzie novels, this is very direct. We go from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ to point ‘C’ without any side trips. There are no McGuffins here. the closest we come is discovering that nearly everyone at the dig site when the skull was stolen might have a motive.

The directness of the story makes this a quick and enjoyable read. This is prime beach material so get out your sunscreen, your beach chair, and a copy of Them Bones and enjoy.

Looking for a good book? Them Bones by David Housewright is the 22nd(?) book in the Mac McKenzie series. It’s fast, fun, and a very enjoyable read.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Them Bones

author: David Housewright

series: Mac McKenzie #22

publisher: Minotaur Books

ISBN: 9781250360519

hardcover, 320 pages