Thanks to St. Martin’s/Minotaur and Netgalley for a copy of The Secrets of Bones by Kylie Logan in exchange for an honest review.

The Secrets of Bones by Kylie Logan

Genre: cozy murder mystery

Publisher: St. Martin’s Minotaur

Publication Date: May 5, 2020

The Secrets of Bones blurb on Goodreads:

Second in a new series from national bestselling author Kylie Logan, The Secrets of Bones is a riveting mystery following Jazz Ramsey as she trains a cadaver dog.

Assembly Day at St. Catherine’s dawns bright and cloudless as professional woman gather from all around Ohio to talk to the schoolgirls about their careers in medicine, at NASA, and as yoga instructors. Administrative assistant Jazz Ramsey is involved herself, giving the girls a taste of her lifelong passion: cadaver dog training. Her adorable new puppy Wally hasn’t been certified yet, so she borrows the fully-trained Gus from a friend and hides a few bones in the unused fourth floor of the school for him to find.

The girls are impressed when Gus easily finds the first bone, but for the second Gus seems to have lost the scent, and heads confidently to a part of the floor where Jazz is sure no bones are hidden—at least not any that she’s put there. But Gus is a professional, and sure enough, behind a door that shouldn’t have been opened in decades, is a human skeleton.

Jazz recognizes the skeleton as Bernadette Quinn, an ex-teacher at the school who’d never returned after one Christmas break, though letters and postcards from her had seemed to indicate there was no cause for worry. But now it seems Bernadette never left the school at all, and her hiding place makes it clear: this was murder.

Bernadette’s strident personality means there are a plethora of suspects inside the school and out of it, and as Jazz gets closer to the truth she can’t help but wonder if someone might be dogging her footsteps . . .

My thoughts:

I absolutely adored the first book in Kylie Logan’s new series. (You can read my review of The Scent of Murder here.) Naturally, when I saw the sequel offered on Netgalley, I jumped to request it. I wasn’t disappointed. Here’s a few reasons why:

Warm-hearted

Even though the book deals with murder and other unpleasant subjects, this isn’t a crime novel. The tone is warm-hearted. Think Alexander McCall-Smith-type warmth, and you’ll get a sense of what I felt as I read.

After reading several harrowing crime novels with gruesome killings and depraved killers, it was nice to read something more gentle. The mystery genre isn’t all darkness and horror. Sometimes it has cute puppies, too.

Realistic cozy investigation

But make no mistake: this is definitely a murder mystery. Logan deftly balances the warmth with realism. Murder is murder. No one particularly liked Bernadette Quinn, but that doesn’t mean they don’t mourn for her or don’t want the killer caught. Her death disturbs and saddens even Jazz’s boss, the formidable Sister Eileen. And rightfully so: someone murdered a woman and hid her body in an infrequently used part of the school she runs.

Jazz’s investigation is realistic. She’s not a police officer, so when she starts asking questions, she receives a lot of push-back. Not everyone is forthcoming. Not every line of questioning yields readily apparent answers. She’s nosing around, much like the cadaver dogs she trains, and not everyone likes that–including her old/new boyfriend Nick the homicide investigator.

The plot unfolds slowly. There are plenty to keep your attention, though: lots of twists and red herrings.

Astute observations of human relationships

Logan is excellent at describing human relationships. The all-girls school environment of St. Catherine’s feels real to me. The all-female setting has its perks but there are a lot of the rivalries, alliances, and minor melodramas inherent to teenage society.

It’s refreshing to see a strong and compassionate female in charge, though. Sister Eileen is a gem. Sarah, Jazz’s BFF and the art teacher at St. Catherine’s, is simultaneously adorable, supportive, and vulnerable. Yet neither of them, nor any of the students, can be discounted as possible suspects.

Kylie Logan doesn’t include a lot of backstory. But there’s enough to remind us that Jazz’s father, a firefighter, died in a mysterious arson blaze in recent years; that Jazz has cautiously reunited with her old lover Nick; and various other tidbits about Jazz’s friends and family.

For once, this is a loving, supportive family! But even functional families have squabbles and Logan makes these minor characters interesting without letting them take over the story. Jazz’s emotions at seeing her mother begin to date again feel realistic. She’s watching another man–a lovely, attentive man–taking her late father’s place. Even though the new boyfriend may not be trying to “take” the place of another man, it’s still a struggle to be happy for her mother.

The Nick-and-Jazz relationship

Nick and Jazz have reunited. They’re tiptoeing forward in their relationship, painfully aware of the things that drove them apart and resolving to avoid them. Each time they’re together, there’s tension coupled with desire. But they obviously care deeply for each other in ways that go beyond sexual desire.

And dogs!

Apart from the early chapters, there isn’t as much about cadaver dog training as one might expect. This is a bit disappointing, but the dogs do play key roles at several moments in the book. Logan is obviously an animal lover, though. It shows through her descriptions of dog behavior and reactions. She describes an Airedales’ walk as a combination of “runway strut and goofy clowning around.” That’s a line that only an observant dog-lover could have written.

Highly recommended for anyone who loves mysteries and dogs!

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