No Bones About It by Rachel Ford is a most amusing romp through a world where the dead have risen and for the most part they are average folks again. Set against this backdrop we have a woman looking for her missing girlfriend and a skeleton PI who is helping her.
Jill needs help. Her girlfriend is missing and she is getting psychic visions that lead her to believe that her girlfriend is still alive but in trouble. Unable to seek help from the police department that she works for, suspended for punching a dirty cop and in desperate need she turns to a skeleton private investigator for help.
Jill’s girlfriend is the star witness to a huge embezzlement case and her disappearance can only be good for the powerful folks who are pulling the strings in New Boston. Now Jill must rely on her unlikely friends, find out who she can trust and do it all before the time runs out for the love of her life.
Pros And My Favourite Parts
This book is a cozy mystery with a paranormal element and a complete blast to read. I loved every second.
Cons And Heads Up
Not a thing.
The Conclusion
Ford’s lighthearted, quirky writing style works so perfectly for this book.
The book was a fun romp with enough excitement to keep me turning the pages, just enough angst to keep me wanting to make sure Jill and her girlfriend were reunited and a whole load of amusing situations, quirky characters and twisty turns that made it a page turning, plot hooking delight.
If you love to find those unique books that are just a little different then this is the read for you. Absolutely get it.
Also, total bonus points for excellent dialogue.
Excerpt from No Bones About It by Rachel Ford
Chapter One
It was supposed to be the end of the world. August 13th, 2030, twelve minutes after nine, New Boston time. That’s when the meteor hit.
It wasn’t the end of the world. It was just the end of life as we knew it.
All over the planet, the dead returned to life, or undeath, or whatever they call it. They rose from their coffins, from battlefields, from the depths of the ocean – from wherever their bones had been interred, in whatever condition they’d been laid to rest, and returned to the world at large.
This guy, Jack Flint – or Flinty Jack, as he claimed his friends called him – was one of them. I wasn’t sure Flinty Jack had friends, and not just because they’d all died a hundred-some years ago. I wasn’t sure Flinty Jack had ever had friends.
He was about as approachable as a porcupine, and as charming as a badger, and I didn’t think the absence of skin or flesh made much difference to that.
In case I hadn’t mentioned it yet, Flinty Jack was a skeleton. He’d been in a glass case at a prestigious medical school on August 13th, 2030, dead going on a hundred and twenty years. An anatomical display of the human skeleton.
Then, bam. He was alive again, one of the so-called bone men: a skeleton held together and granted the power of animation and speech by an otherworldly force that no one on earth understood.
But God forbid you utter the ‘m’ word – magic – in Flinty Jack’s presence.
I was in his cramped office, between stacks of paperwork, explaining my situation. I’d met him thirty seconds before, and I made the mistake of mentioning that I too had been impacted by the meteor’s magic.
He clacked his finger bones on the desk, and interrupted with a curt, “I should tell you right off, I don’t buy into any of that bunkum. And I don’t use that word in this office.”
I blinked. “What word?”
“Magic,” he said. He had a heavy East Coast accent, and it became all the more pronounced when he was annoyed. Like now. “I’m a rationalist, Miss…?”
He trailed off, and I replied, “Oh. Didn’t I say? Jill Wallace. Detective Jill Wallace.”
He stared at me. At least, I was pretty sure he was staring. He didn’t have eyes, just bleached white eye sockets. So I couldn’t say for sure. But he had his sockets trained right on me. “I see. As I was saying, Detective, I’m a rationalist. A man of science. As I exist in the natural world, my state is not an unnatural or supernatural one.”
“No,” I said, “of course not. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. I just mean, I have magical abilities of my own –”
He clacked his finger bones again.
“I mean, uh…well, I can shoot fireballs from my fingertips. I’m not sure what you would call that, except magic?”
“A weaponized exothermal chemical process,” he said, with a shrug of his shoulder blades.
“Yeah, that really rolls off the tongue.”
“An ‘ability,’ if you prefer brevity. That seems to be all the rage these days. But I take your meaning: you’re a Freak.”
I threw a worried glance around, not because the comment offended me, but because I was afraid someone might overhear us. Aside from a few spiders, though, and – had I imagined it? A mouse moving about in the corner – we were still alone in the tiny office.
“That’s right. In addition to the fire, uh, ability, I’ve got a kind of clairvoyance. That’s how I know she’s still alive.”
The she in question was my fiancée, Natalie Lyons, who had gone missing a week ago to the day. “I could sense that she’d escaped when I searched the scene. I could see a glimpse of where she was hiding.”
“But you can’t tell the investigating officer that,” he surmised, “because you’d lose your job.”
I nodded. It wasn’t illegal for Freaks to hold jobs, but it wasn’t illegal to fire us, either. And since evidence obtained through clairvoyant influence was inadmissible in court, it was essentially the end of any detective’s career to admit to having the ability.
“Not only that, but there is no investigating officer,” I said. “I have no evidence of a crime. Even if I did tell them what I saw, that’s not evidence.”
“Because it was obtained through clairvoyance.”
“Right. And Natalie is an adult; legally, she can disappear if she wants to.”
“But you don’t believe that’s what happened?” Flinty Jack asked. “I know it’s not. I’m telling you, she left in a panic. She got out because there were men after her.”
Get It Online
When you use the links in this review and buy within 24 hours of clicking then we get a small commission that helps us run the site and it costs you nothing extra
Series
Flint & Co Paranormal Investigations Book 1
No Bones About It
Throw Me A Bone
Skull And Crossbones
Bone Of Contention
Bits and Bobs
AISN number: B09H57Q1CG
Publisher: Indie Author
If you enjoyed No Bones About It by Rachel Ford then you should also look at
Note: I received a free review copy of No Bones About It by Rachel Ford. No money was exchanged for this review. When you use our links to buy we get a small commission which supports the running of this site
