BEVERLY CONNOR – Scattered Graves.

Penguin/Obsidian, paperback original; 1st printing, February 2009.

   I’m not much interested in stories about medical examiners (not even Quincy) or forensic specialists (I’ve never read a book by Patricia Cornwell), nor do I watch Bones or any of the CSI shows on TV. It must be a failure in me, as they seem to be very popular with everyone else.

   In any case, this is the reason that this is the first book by Beverly Connor that I’ve read, it being the sixth book in her “Diana Fallon Forensic Invesigator” series, which followed five books about Linsday Chamberlain, described online as an “anthropologist who specializes in archaeology [and] an expert in forensic analysis of bones.”

   A description of A Rumor of Bones, the first book in the Chamberlain series begins this way: “It’s the bones of missing children that disturb her…” and that tells me all I want to know. I don’t read books that have bones of missing children in them. I’m sure that this is what wiped me out of reading any others in the series, as none of the titles sound remotely familiar:

      Lindsay Chamberlain series:

   1. A Rumor of Bones. Cumberland House, hc, Oct 1996; pb, Mar 2001.

   2. Questionable Remains. Cumberland House, hc, Sept 1997; Worldwide, pb, May 2001.
   3. Dressed to Die. Cumberland House, hc, Sept 1998; pb, Oct 2001.
   4. Skeleton Crew. Cumberland House, hc, Oct 1999; pb, Jan 2002.

   5. Airtight Case. Cumberland House, hc, Oct 2000; pb, Oct 2002.

   But now that I’ve done the research, I take that back. Cumberland House books don’t get much circulation up here in New England, and the reason that the titles don’t look familiar, all but the one from Worldwide (Harlequin), is that I never saw them.

   Luckily enough, when her contract with Cumberland seems to have run out, Beverly Connor was able to adapt and start another series, apparently in much the same subgenre, and maybe even the same same mode. Here’s a list of her Diane Fallon books, both so far and forthcoming:

       Diane Fallon series:

   1. One Grave Too Many. Onyx, pbo, Dec 2003.

   2. Dead Guilty. Onyx, pbo, Sept 2004.
   3. Dead Secret. Onyx, pbo, Dec 2005.
   4. Dead Past. Onyx, pbo, Feb 2007.

   5. Dead Hunt. Obsidian, pbo, Feb 2008.
   6. Scattered Graves. Obsidian, pbo, Feb 2009.
   7. Dust to Dust. Obsidian, pbo, Aug 2009.

   Six books into a series these days, when detectives have personal lives as well as solve crimes, means that there’s a lot of backstory to catch up on, but to Connor’s credit, she made it easy for me, a first time reader. What struck me the most, though, was not the small group of friends, enemies and co-workers around her – some of whom are one and the same – but how “over the top” the story line is.

   After a rather standard opening for a book about a DNA lab, with the local sheriff bringing in a young boy’s find – a stash of bone chips in a newly plowed field – I suddenly sat straight up in my chair in the middle of Chapter Four, as a local policeman with a grudge against Diane tries to push her personally off a cliff.

   She, being an experienced rock climber, manages to escape, while Harve Delamore falls to his death. Perhaps I should mention that Rosewood, where Diane works, in in Georgia, not too far from Atlanta, and you may have to accept that grudges last longer and are worked out differently in the South.

   Including, strangely enough, Diane’s nearly being charged with Delamore’s death. But wait, that’s not all. I won’t reveal anything that you wouldn’t like to know about ahead of time, but Rosewood is one of the most corrupt towns you will ever be in, and that goes all the way to the top. Until someone with a gun tries to do something about it – and that someone may or may not be one of the Good Guys.

   I’d like to say more, but let me release my breath and say Whew, just thinking about it. It’s like one bombshell going off after the other. There is one heck of a complex ending, too, one that all but stalls out in a moral morass of malicious behavior, some intended, some not, as extravagantly excessive as anything that has gone before.

   And please don’t take that as a bad thing. Is the book readable? Once you pick it up, I don’t think you’ll put it down very quickly. It took me two evenings to read its slightly over 350 pages, the best eyeball rate I’ve managed to accomplish in a good long while.