CANR
WORK TITLE: The Unquiet Bones
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WEBSITE: https://www.lorethannewhite.com/
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COUNTRY: Canada
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LAST VOLUME: CA 403
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PERSONAL
Married; children: daughters.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Journalist, writer. Worked as a journalist and newspaper editor in South Africa and Canada for sixteen years.
AVOCATIONS:Long-distance running, biking, and skiing.
AWARDS:Multiple RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice awards and CataRomance Reviewers’ Choice awards; National Readers’ Choice Award; Romantic Crown for best romantic suspense and best book overall; Booksellers’ Best finalist; RITA Awards (three); Daphne du Maurier Awards (two); Peter Robinson Award for best crime novel prize, Crime Writers of Canada Awards, 2024, for The Maid’s Dairy.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Author Loreth Anne White is perhaps best known for her romance novels set in exotic locales. The Heart of a Mercenary, for one, takes place at an African clinic that gets destroyed by a renegade militia, spurring a plucky nurse and her soldier-for-hire love interest in a race against time to diagnose the disease the clinic had uncovered just before it was destroyed. In The Heart of a Renegade, a personal-security specialist with a tragic backstory is hired to protect a young woman who has been targeted by a breakaway Chinese terrorist group. White’s fiction, however, bends the traditional romance genre, introducing elements of suspense and thriller fiction.
“My … works tend towards the dark side,” White explained in an interview appearing in Night Owl Reviews. “Readers have called them emotional, atmospheric with a vivid sense of place, and have said that I pull no punches. My heroines are strong characters, but they are not without their vulnerabilities and faults. Or fears. They are not looking to be rescued by the heroes they meet along the way, but often the hero will offer them a lens through which they can reexamine and understand themselves.” “In writing fiction you can control the outcome,” White related in Dario Speaks. “You can make the ‘good’ guy triumph over ‘evil.’ You can conquer the heinous villain, catch the criminal, help the deserving heroine survive against impossible odds. You can give meaning to, and create order out of what otherwise often seems like a harsh randomness in real life. It’s perhaps a way of trying to make sense of it all.”
White, who was born in southern Africa and now lives in the Canadian Pacific, draws on her experiences as a world-traveling journalist in setting the scenes for her characters. Surgeon Sheik’s Rescue, for example, is set in France but features an Arab prince as its love interest and an American journalist as its protagonist. “The author’s writing is very vivid. I felt in some cases like I was watching a movie rather than reading a book. She clearly understands the ‘show don’t tell’ rule of writing,” wrote a Smart Bitches, Trashy Books reviewer. “And as someone who writes pretty much in straight lines it was lovely to read someone who knows how to put the curlicues in the right place to make it all shine. The hero, Tariq Al Arif/Tahar du Val, doesn’t come across as too terribly sheik-y. Not once did he refer to the heroine as ‘my little lizard.’ I took this as a good sign.”
Just as popular as White’s world-spanning romances are her thrillers set in the Pacific Northwest. “I’ve written almost as many stories set in hot locales as cold ones—the Congo jungle, several in the Sahara desert, Botswana, or other parts of Africa,” White declared in her Dario Speaks interview, “and I do like writing those steamy, oppressive, or burning settings as much as the dark and frigid ones. However, editors have been more inclined to ask for my bleak Nordic-toned or wilderness gothic type concepts.” For instance, In the Waning Light is “the story of a True Crime writer,” White stated in a Big Thrill interview, “who, in order to win back her fiancé and a chance at a future she thinks she wants, must return to her small Oregon coastal hometown to tackle the one story everyone says she cannot write—the story of her sister’s brutal murder.” In the Barren Ground tells “the story of young, rookie cop Tana Larsson, who is driven by her past mistakes to take a post in the far north, close to the Arctic Circle—a place where darkness consumes the winter, and where humans are scarce, and predators roam freely,” White told Joyce Lamb for USA Today ‘s Happily Ever After blog. “When her superior goes out of commission, Tana becomes the sole police officer in 17,500 square miles, and when a call comes one frigid night about the fatal wolf-mauling of two students, the only way to reach the remote scene is to enlist the help of rogue bush pilot Cameron ‘Crash’ O’Halloran.”
Critics celebrated In the Barren Ground ‘s genre-bending combination of romance and thriller fiction tropes. “As her list of suspects grows,” declared a Kirkus Reviews contributor, “both human and supernatural, Tana proves herself to be a smart and competent investigator, and Crash is a worthy love interest.” “As the events of the story unfold,” assessed a reviewer for All about Romance, “you can feel Tana’s sense of isolation and a mounting dread as her investigation gets her closer and closer to a collision course with the killer. Some of the scenes set in the snowy wilderness will make you never want to go camping or even go outside at night again. … If you are a fan of suspenseful thrillers set in remote locations, you may want to give In the Barren Ground a try.” White’s protagonist “is thoughtfully developed and engaging,” stated a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “and readers will root for her … from start to finish.”
[open new]A trio of White’s books concern Angie Pallorino, who is angling to become a private investigator after being banned from the police force in Victoria, British Columbia. In The Girl in the Moss, Angie and her boyfriend, detective James Maddocks—whose continued employment is a source of relational friction—are on a rural fishing trip when they come across a skeleton. Reviving a two-decades-old cold case, Angie hopes to appease the victim’s grandmother by solving it, but everyone from river guides to local toughs would prefer that she fail. A Publishers Weekly reviewer suggested that this “fast-paced and suspenseful novel with unexpected twists will send new readers back for earlier installments” in the “Angie Pallorino” series.
In the Deep, a stand-alone novel, opens with Ellie Cresswell-Smith on trial for the murder of her husband, Martin, in New South Wales, Australia. As shown in alternating narratives, Martin’s body was found by constable Lozza Bianchi; Ellie had met Martin a few years earlier after the drowning of her three-year-old daughter and dissolution of her marriage. Hastily falling in love, Ellie helps Martin invest in a real-estate project that proves to be rubbing Australian locals the wrong way, even as he becomes an abusive philanderer—and perhaps starts drugging her with nefarious intent.
A Kirkus Reviews writer found In the Deep to be “tightly written with a moody sense of place” and “numerous twists that will keep readers thoroughly absorbed.” The reviewer summed the novel up as a “satisfyingly creepy psychological thriller.” A Publishers Weekly hailed In the Deep as “stunning” and “superbly imagined” and concluded that “convincing character development and a denouement worthy of Agatha Christie make this a winner.”
Christie’s And Then There Were None is evoked by White’s In the Dark. Nine guests connected by an unfortunate moment from their past are invited to a remote lodge in British Columbia by a shadowy figure—bent on revenge—with a plane crash setting up disaster. A Publishers Weekly reviewer reckoned this novel a “taut, clever thriller” and “worthy homage to the original.”
Revolving around the tragic deaths of teen girls are White’s novels Beneath Devil’s Bridge and The Unquiet Bones. In the former title, the murder of small-town Canadian fourteen-year-old Leena Rai is confessed to by guidance counselor Clayton Jay Pelley. The case ends up ruining the life of police detective Rachel Hart, who gets interviewed decades later when Clayton surfaces on a podcast proclaiming his innocence—and Rachel wants to solve the case once and for all. A Publishers Weekly reviewer observed that the “suspenseful, multilayered plot” in Beneath Devil’s Bridge “is matched by fully realized characters” as White “consistently entertains.”
The Unquiet Bones was inspired by the unsolved real-life murder of sixteen-year-old Rhona Duncan, who was raped and strangled in North Vancouver in 1976 after a party in a neighborhood not far from White’s own at the time. In White’s novel, the discovery of bones during construction at a ski resort leads Sergeant Jane Munro—whose fiancé disappeared while hiking during her unmentioned pregnancy—to take on the decades-old case of Annalise Jansen’s disappearance. The discovery of the prime suspect’s remains leaves the case wide open. A Library Journal reviewer affirmed that The Unquiet Bones “combines the best elements of a cold-case investigation with a well-developed suspense novel.”
In The Patient’s Secret, also inspired by true events, therapist Lily Bradley and her psychology professor husband Tom are unsure how to proceed after he discovers the body of a jogger on the beach. The woman may have been the victim of a serial killer—but her sixteen-year-old son had recently started pursuing a relationship with the Bradleys’ twelve-year-old daughter. A Publishers Weekly reviewer declared that White does a “superb job keeping the reader guessing as she peels back the layers … to reveal the shocking truth.”[close new]
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2016, review of In the Barren Ground; September 15, 2020, review of In the Deep.
Publishers Weekly, May 23, 2016, review of In the Barren Ground, p. 52; April 16, 2018, review of The Girl in the Moss, p. 77; October 28, 2019, review of In the Dark, p. 83; August 24, 2020, review of In the Deep, p. 53; March 22, 2021, review of Beneath Devil’s Bridge, p. 61; January 3, 2022, review of The Patient’s Secret, p. 23.
ONLINE
All about Romance, http://allaboutromance.com/ (February 1, 2017), review of In the Barren Ground.
All Books Considered, http://booksconsidered.blogspot.com/ (August 16, 2016), review of In the Barren Ground.
Big Thrill, http://www.thebigthrill.org/ (June 30, 2015), “A Dark Lure by Loreth Anne White,” author interview; (May 10, 2024), Hank Phillippi Ryan, “Chasing Closure One Bone at a time,” author interview.
Book Notions, https://booknotions.com/ (July 26, 2024), author Q&A.
Dario Speaks, https:// dariospeaks.wordpress.com/ (April 2, 2016), “Interview: Under the Covers with Loreth Anne White.”
Library Journal, https://www.libraryjournal.com/ (November 4, 2022), Catherine Field, review of The Maid’s Diary; (January 3, 2024), Lesa Holstine, review of The Unquiet Bones.
Loreth Anne White website, https://www.lorethannewhite.com (July 26, 2024).
Mystery and Suspense, https://www.mysteryandsuspense.com/ (July 26, 2024), Sandra Hoover, author interview.
Night Owl Reviews, https://www.nightowlreviews.com/ (August 16, 2016), author interview.
RT Book Reviews, https://www.rtbookreviews.com/ (February 1, 2017), Debbie Richardson, review of Melting the Ice; Page Traynor, reviews of The Sheik Who Loved Me, Safe Passage, and The Sheik’s Command; Sandra Garcia-Myers, reviews of The Heart of a Mercenary, A Sultan’s Ransom, Rules of Re-engagement, Seducing the Mercenary, The Heart of a Renegade, Manhunter, Her 24-Hour Protector, and Cold Case Affair; Catherine Witmer, review of Breaking Free; Roseann Marlett, reviews of The Perfect Outsider, Surgeon Sheik’s Rescue, and Sheik’s Revenge; Melanie Bates, reviews of Guarding the Princess and The Missing Colton; Susannah Balch, review of In the Barren Ground.
Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/ (July 16, 2013), review of Surgeon Sheik’s Rescue.
USA Today, http://happyeverafter.usatoday.com/ (August 16, 2016), Joyce Lamb, “Loreth Anne White Gravitates toward Strong, Driven, Seriously Flawed Heroines.”
Loreth Anne White
Loreth Anne White was born and raised in southern Africa, but now lives in Whistler, a ski resort in the moody British Columbian Coast Mountain range. It’s a place of vast, wild and often dangerous mountains, larger-than-life characters, epic adventure, and romance — the perfect place to escape reality.
It’s no wonder it was here she was inspired to abandon a 16-year career as a reporter, features writer, and editor (under the name Loreth Beswetherick) to escape into a world of romantic fiction filled with dangerous men and adventurous women.
Genres: Romantic Suspense, Mystery, Romance
New and upcoming books
March 2024
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The Ghost Writer
(Never Tell, book 2)March 2024
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The Unquiet Bones
September 2024
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The Swimmer
Series
Shadow Soldiers
1. The Heart of a Mercenary (2006)
2. A Sultan's Ransom (2006)
3. Rules of Re-Engagement (2006)
4. Seducing the Mercenary (2007)
5. The Heart of a Renegade (2008)
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Wild Country
1. Manhunter (2008)
2. Cold Case Affair (2009)
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Sahara Kings
1. The Sheik's Command (2010)
2. Sheik's Revenge (2012)
3. Surgeon Sheik's Rescue (2012)
4. Guarding the Princess (2012)
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Snowy Creek
1. The Slow Burn of Silence (2013)
aka Pieces of You
2. In the Waning Light (2015)
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Dark Lure
1. A Dark Lure (2015)
2. The Dark Bones (2019)
3. In the Barren Ground (2016)
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Angie Pallorino
1. The Drowned Girls (2017)
2. The Lullaby Girl (2017)
3. The Girl in the Moss (2018)
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Novels
Melting the Ice (2003)
Safe Passage (2004)
The Sheikh Who Loved Me (2005)
In the Dark (2019)
In the Deep (2020)
Beneath Devil's Bridge (2021)
The Patient's Secret (2022)
The Maid's Diary (2023)
The Unquiet Bones (2024)
The Swimmer (2024)
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Series contributed to
Thoroughbred Legacy
10. Breaking Free (2008)
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Love in 60 Seconds
5. A Game of Deception (2009)
aka Her 24-Hour Protector
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Perfect, Wyoming
5. The Perfect Outsider (2012)
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Coltons of Wyoming
3. The Missing Colton (2013)
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Never Tell
2. The Ghost Writer (2024)
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Omnibus editions hide
Shock Waves / Melting the Ice (2004) (with Jenna Mills)
Under the Gun / Safe Passage (2004) (with Lyn Stone)
Danger Calls / Sheikh Who Loved Me (2005) (with Caridad Piñeiro)
Soldier Caged / Seducing the Mercenary (2009) (with Rebecca York)
Secret Delivery / Her 24 Hour Protector (2010) (with Delores Fossen)
The Sheikh's Dilemma (2010) (with Jacqueline Diamond and Laura Wright)
Covert Christmas (2010) (with Linda Conrad and Marilyn Pappano)
Cold Case Affair / Her Hero in Hiding (2010) (with Rachel Lee)
Heart of a Hero (2011) (with Lyn Stone and Anna Marie Winston)
In The Count's Bed (2011) (with Amy Andrews and Sara Craven)
Desert Knights (2011) (with Linda Conrad)
LAS Vegas: Scandals (2014) (with Nina Bruhns and Carla Cassidy)
On Thin Ice (2018)
Loreth Anne White
@Loreth
lorethannewhite.com
Loreth Anne White is an Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestselling author of thrillers, mysteries, and suspense. With well over 2 million books sold around the world, she is a three-time RITA finalist, an overall Daphne du Maurier Award winner, Arthur Ellis finalist, and winner of multiple industry awards.
A recovering journalist who has worked in South Africa and Canada, she now calls Canada home. She resides in the Pacific Northwest, dividing time between Victoria on Vancouver Island, the ski resort of Whistler, and a rustic lakeside cabin in the Cariboo. When she’s not writing or dreaming up plots, you’ll find her on the lakes, in the ocean, or on the trails with her dog where she tries—unsuccessfully—to avoid bears.
Interview by Sandra Hoover
Q. Welcome, Loreth. Congratulations on the release of The Patient’s Secret, another stunning 5-star story based on a true crime. Talk to us about this book and how it came about — what touched and inspired you about this specific crime to the point you felt compelled to incorporate it into your plot line in The Patient’s Secret?
Loreth: Thank you for the welcome, and for having me here.
Both The Patient’s Secret and my previous release, Beneath Devil’s Bridge, have backstories that are closely based on real and horrendous murders that occurred in my part of the world. These two violent events affected me deeply as a mother—they occurred when I was covering the crime beat for my local newspaper, and at a time that my own daughters were of similar ages to the kids involved. These crimes forced me to ask questions of myself as a parent, and of my community, and they have lived rent-free in my head ever since. Perhaps incorporating these incidents into my fiction is a way of finally processing them, trying to understand them—which, I think, is what crime fiction does. Or perhaps using real events as a backdrop to my fiction is my way of underscoring (for myself) that, yes, while some of us lean to crime fic for grand escapism and vicarious thrills, in reality the ripple effects of these horrifically violent events are raw and rough and deeply complicated, and even once a perpetrator is charged and sentenced, ‘closure’ can remain elusive.
Q. Which brings us to the next question: The Patient’s Secret is a highly entertaining story (as are all of your books), but also deeply thought-provoking. Do you feel it’s important for stories to not only entertain, but also inspire deeper thought and/or questions? Is this something you consciously do with each book?
Loreth: Good question! You’re making me dig deeper into my own creative process and psyche. I confess that given current affairs—where we find ourselves so bitterly divided on issues of ‘right’ vs ‘wrong’; on questions around policing and justice and prisons/punishment; and around issues of rage, vigilantism, revenge, gun violence—that trying to write a domestic suspense felt a bit … trite. I struggled with feeling shallow. I asked myself if what I was doing was worthy enough. Or meaningful enough. But I kept returning to the entertainment and escapist value. I get such wonderful escape from current affairs by reading about murders and watching crime shows (as counterintuitive as that might seem). I love the genre tropes. I adore it when authors deliver on my expectations for the genre while also bringing something fresh to the table. I love when the heroine restores order to an upturned world. So I decided that while I still want to deliver on those genre tropes promised by psychological suspense—devious, entertaining, twisty fiction with a puzzle and clues and misdirection—I also wanted to give my stories a dark little heart of gravitas. And using true crime helped me do that. The real crimes served as a reminder to me that yes, this is all fun, but it has a bitter core, too. It has real life consequences. And perhaps that can provoke deeper questions about justice, retribution, and community complicity, as well as entertain.
As I told my editor—the wonderful Alison Dasho—I call it ‘poison popcorn’ J. Or popcorn delivery. Think of it as shoveling caramel corn into your mouth and not really focusing on the eating, just enjoying, then suddenly hitting a bitter little centre, and going, ‘Oh?’. I like that idea of shock.
Q. So do you think creators of crime fiction have a responsibility in the kinds of stories they choose to tell?
Loreth: That’s an interesting debate. I suppose this question goes to the heart of why we find crime (murder; violence against the vulnerable; vengeful, jealous women doing harm, gaslighting others) fun, entertaining, escapist in the first place. I’ve always leaned toward a Jungian view–-that crime tales are a way for us humans to haul our Shadows and Monsters out of the basement of our collective unconsciousness and trot them into an arena where we can examine them in the bright light of day. We can match our fictional Monster with a Hero (the proverbial Angel and Devil on our shoulders) and we can put them through hypothetical paces and assess the consequences. Then we get to solve the crime at ‘The End’–the Monster is banished and order is once more restored. That is immensely satisfying, no? But who we choose as our Heroes (how we depict them) and the manner in which we choose to defeat the Monsters and punish them says a lot about who we are as a society.
Perhaps this is where some responsibility lies: Do we hold up high the rogue cop with a penchant for kangaroo justice and violence? Do we glorify the vengeful woman out to steal another’s husband in a domestic suspense? Should we try better to portray traditionally absent voices as protagonists? Should we find deeper nuances in the mental health of a villain who hurts others? How should we present and reward moral choices? While still keeping the entertainment and pace rocking?
Personally, I am a fan of the gray areas between so called right and wrong. I’m not a black hat, white hat kinda person—things always look different through someone else’s lens, if we try to see it, and I like to try to portray some of that in my stories.
Q. You mentioned ‘domestic suspense’. Some female authors take offense to this genre tag. How do you feel about it?
Loreth: For me, a domestic suspense is a story that occurs in the milieu of a ‘domicile.’ The home. A place where families live and nurture their offspring and need to feel safe. So no, I don’t find the tag offensive. I don’t believe that the home is the exclusive domain of a woman. It’s just that female writers at the moment are rocking and dominating this genre. In a domestic suspense, the Villain is traditionally not a threat that comes from afar. The Monster often is found right inside the house. Or inside one of the character’s psyches. The noise is not coming from behind the locked door, trying to get in. It’s already inside. It’s coming from downstairs, or under the child’s bed, or from the basement. Or it’s coming from inside the protagonist’s own head. That can be terribly disturbing. (And fun to write about).
Q. Tell us a little about The Patient’s Secret? What true crime specifically inspired this story?
Loreth: I don’t want to say which crime it was that shaped the backstory because it would have the effect of a spoiler. I do however mention at the end of the book what happened in reality, and when.
The Patient’s Secret centres on Lily Bradley, a respected psychotherapist married to a distinguished professor. They live in a dream house with their two children in close-knit Story Cove. Lily’s life is a perfect, well-ordered one. Or so it seems. But as a therapist, she knows everyone keeps things hidden. Even her.
Then sensual and free-spirited Arwen Harper rolls into town in her hand-painted VW van, her sixteen-year-old son riding shotgun. Arwen’s son meets Lily’s daughter, Tom and his friends meet Arwen, and overnight, Story Cove’s secrets are no longer safe. Because Arwen might know her new neighbors better than they know themselves.
Then Lily’s husband Tom discovers the body of a jogger on the beach, a broken string of beads in her hand. The death appears brutal, personal. And it brings Detective Rue Duval into their midst. Rue has a shrewd eye. Her job is to expose secrets. But she’s also quite an expert at keeping her own.
As the lives of these three women and their families become inexorably entwined, one thing is clear: When it comes to survival, ordinary people can do the most terrible things.
Q. Will this be a continued direction for your work—true crime inspired fiction?
Loreth: My next book is not inspired by one specific true crime, rather, it draws on a composite of several similar events. The story to follow, however, will likely be based on another true crime, one that occurred in my part of the word when I was a young teen. A cold case that has yet to be solved.
Q. Can you tell us any more about your current work in progress? What can readers look forward to next?
Loreth: It’s a devious, twisty psychological suspense with a trick up its sleeve. And similar to The Patient’s Secret, it combines a police procedural angle coupled with the ‘colliding’ narratives of four women with a disastrous outcome: Murder. It’s as much about who did the murder as, who is going to do the murder.
Q. Who’s your go-to author when you’re looking to read for entertainment in the crime genre?
Loreth: In this subgenre (psychological/domestic suspense), my go-to at the moment is Lisa Jewell. I love her easy voice and find it delightful to sink into her words and worlds, and escape.
Q. And is there a new author making waves in the genre that you’re excited to read or have recently read?
Loreth: Making waves/keen to read (off the top of my head because there are so many more): Kellye Garrett, Amina Akhtar, Stephanie Wrobel, Rachel Howzell Hall, Lucey Foley, Ausma Zehanat Khan, May Cobb, Samantha Bailey.
CHASING CLOSURE ONE BONE AT A TIME
THE BIG THRILL INTERVIEWS AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR LORETH ANNE WHITE
By Hank Phillippi Ryan
Book Cover: THE UNQUIET BONES
No matter how experienced, best-selling, and award-winning a writer you are, beginning a new series is a daunting and exciting journey. It combines all the challenges of creating a standalone—a character you care about, a riveting problem, increasing complications, high stakes, and a satisfyingly surprising ending—with the singular necessities of a series: not only a terrific story but with characters you want to follow wherever they go.
Loreth Anne White has taken that step with her brand new THE UNQUIET BONES. It’s a cold case procedural melded with psychological suspense—and the beginning of her new Munro and Quinn series. White’s 30 previous novels have earned her glowing reviews, literary awards, and a passionate international fan base—with more than three million books sold! If you’re already a fan, you’ll see how her earlier novels evolved into dark, twisty, psychological thrillers and mysteries that address the technical aspects of crime investigation as they explore the emotional consequences of trauma and loss.
And, in providing what the industry requires in a ‘big” book, White’s new novel also encompasses a pervasive theme: in this case, an exploration of closure, and why the human condition demands every crime has a satisfying conclusion. And what happens to people when a devastating and personal crime is not resolved.
Here, The Big Thrill chats with White about THE UNQUIET BONES.
Author Photo: Loreth Anne White
Loreth Anne White
Can you tell us what this book is about—and also what it’s about?
When human remains are unearthed beneath an old chapel in the woods, the discovery re-opens an almost 50-year-old mystery of a missing teen. As the bones begin to ‘speak’ to my homicide detective and her forensic anthropologist colleague, the story they begin to tell starts to unravel the lives of a group of old friends once dubbed the Shoreview Six by the media, and the friends—who now have so much more to lose after all these years—will learn just how far each might go to keep the truth buried.
The story also examines media exploitation of pain, as well as the notion of ‘closure.’ Is closure indeed what it’s cracked up to be? Does closure actually bring peace? And how might one live—and grieve—without it, because sometimes answers can forever remain elusive. My cop is struggling with her own complicated loss and unanswered questions, which in turn feeds a fierce drive in her to bring closure to this case and to others, even if she can’t find it herself. The story also explores how easy it is to blame or scapegoat the ‘other’ in a community and how guilt and shame can shape lives.
How do you hope readers will feel at the end of it?
My goal with the ending was to, of course, have my detective solve the mystery of the bones, but I also hoped to leave the reader with a lingering sense of what lack of closure still means. And to show how sometimes the truth, or resolution, doesn’t always have a ‘happy’ happy ending and how crime and the associated outfall is filled with shades of grey. My wish was also that the reader feels a kinship with my cop, Jane—that they like her. And there is a message that empathy and kindness can be qualities of strength.
Your new book is inspired by a true crime. What do you remember about when you first heard about that crime? Why did it stay with you?
On a hot summer night in 1976—not far from where I lived—16-year-old Rhona Duncan was sexually assaulted and strangled to death mere steps away from her house after walking home from a party with friends. I was three years younger than Rhona was when she was killed. I attended school nearby. I knew how safe the neighborhood was. I was familiar with the kids and clothes and music and TV shows of that time and place. Rhona could have been any one of us, and it’s amazing that to this day–despite the police periodically revisiting the investigation–her brutal murder remains unsolved. While the crimes and characters detailed in THE UNQUIET BONES are completely fictional, Rhona’s murder resonated with me and provided the seed for the novel.
A story about a missing person can be risky for a writer because a reader knows that either the person will be found—alive or dead—or they won’t be found. Well, wait. Is that risky or wonderful?
This made me laugh. It also made me ponder—does a story about a missing person have to end with the person found? I guess it’s a bit like asking: In a story about a murder or a crime, the reader (at least in this genre) generally goes in assuming the detective will find the killer, or solve the mystery, no? The story is about how they get there and how the journey impacts or changes the detective. I think a crime novel is usually about a lot more than just solving a crime. It’s always about some aspect of society, community, human nature, or our culture of the time because what we decide is a crime, and how we choose to police crime and mete out justice . . . it says a lot about who we are as people. Crime novels, I think, are ways of finding order in the chaos of the world.
How and when did you come up with the title?
The title evolved with the discovery of bones and how those bones began to speak to my investigators. Bones are often the last thing we leave behind, yet they can tell so much about who we were, how we lived, where we lived. And sometimes, they tell how we died.
What’s the first line, and was that always the first line?
“A steady rain falls as Benjamin and Raphael Duvalier work their excavator alongside a dark lake on the misted flanks of Hemlock Mountain. The brothers are digging up the concrete foundations of an old and tiny wooden A-frame chapel.”
No, those were not always the first lines. I rework text so much I don’t even recall the various iterations of the earlier first lines!
The idea of closure is such a theme in this novel; can you talk about that a little bit? Why that concept is so compelling to you—and to us?
Never knowing what happened to a loved one or why something awful or violent occurred to them is a kind of hell I can only imagine. This never knowing is something that underscores all cold and unsolved cases, and I think ideas around a lack of closure really started to niggle at me when I began covering news stories about people who went missing in the mountains around the ski resort I call home. Sometimes, their remains are found decades later. Other times, they might never be found. I wanted my homicide detective in THE UNQUIET BONES to experience this kind of emotional limbo while working on cold cases where she can perhaps finally bring closure to others. My hope is that my detective, Jane Munro, brings a special kind of empathy to her work because of her personal experience.
You use a phrase called grief limbo—I have never heard that phrase before. What does that mean?
People experiencing grief typically cycle through stages, most commonly including denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. However, when there is a lack of closure, the loss can become an ongoing trauma, and this trauma—this “ambiguous” loss—is sometimes referred to as “frozen grief” or being in “grief limbo.” An example of this kind of complicated grief is what a mother might experience when her child is kidnapped, and she doesn’t know whether her child is dead or alive or ever coming home.
War, acts of terrorism, deportation, genocide, natural disasters can all result in complicated loss. A type of grief limbo can also occur even when a person does know where their loved one is and what happened to them, as in after a divorce, or with the incarceration of a loved one, or an adoption, or losing someone to Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, severe mental illness, depression, addiction, or a traumatic brain injury. It can also happen with “ghosting.”
In the book, you also examine the balance between focusing on one’s personal good versus the greater good—why is that so fascinating to you?
It’s a perpetual dilemma in this divisive entitlement era, is it not? Focusing exclusively on what is good only for oneself can come at the expense of others. It fosters a lack of empathy, an unwillingness to listen. I suspect we could all listen more deeply and try to empathize a little more.
When you are writing a book inspired by a true crime, how do you decide what details to keep authentic and which ones to fictionalize?
That’s a good question. While the idea for THE UNQUIET BONES was sparked to life by a true crime, the story is all fictional. However, two of my earlier works, The Patient’s Secret and Beneath Devil’s Bridge, lean a little more heavily into real events that occurred, but I use the details of the crimes more as a backstory that informs the fictional narratives as they unfold in the present.
As a journalist, your whole job is to tell a riveting and compelling story. How do you use what you learned as a journalist to create equally compelling fiction?
For a time, I covered the crime beat as a journalist, and getting to know law enforcement and the procedures around tragic events has definitely helped shape my fiction. The job also taught me to sit my butt into a chair and produce words daily. As with novels, I think a compelling news article starts with a good story question, something that piques curiosity in the minds of readers, who will then keep reading to find the answer by the end. News becomes particularly engaging if it’s about people—characters—whose struggles resonate in some way with readers.
What do you think are the secrets to successful suspense? What keeps a reader turning the pages?
As a reader, my favorite suspense novels all start with an intriguing ‘story question’ that keeps me turning pages to learn the answer. Big bonus points if the author truly surprises me with that answer! I adore twists I don’t see coming, but at the same time, they should be well-seeded to make them feel organic. And for thrillers, I prefer shorter chapters, each ending with a chapter hook that further piques my curiosity and additionally complicates the heroine’s journey. I don’t need the focal characters to be likeable, but I do want to be intrigued by them or possibly empathize with them in some ways.
What did you learn from this book?
Another good question. I learn something more about the craft and challenges of writing with each work, but from the research I did for the story, I discovered some truly fascinating-to-me things about bones and what they can tell about the living even hundreds of years later. I think that was my biggest takeaway—a deepening fascination and also reverence for the human body and those who study it.
Q&A With Loreth Anne White
New Information about Upcoming Book Related News
Q&A With Loreth Anne White
Last night I finished reading an early copy of Loreth Anne White’s upcoming novel The Unquiet Bones coming out on March 5th, 2024. After I finished speeding through the book, I couldn’t wait to finally do this Q&A with her. Loreth is the Washington Post, Amazon Charts & Bild Bestselling author of many mystery thriller suspense novels, some of them are The Maids Diary, The Patients Secret, In The Deep, Beneath Devils Bridge, & In The Dark. In a past life Loreth was a journalist in both Canada & South Africa!
Q: Loreth, would you like to tell the readers who haven’t read the novel The Unquiet Bones a little bit about it?
A: When human remains are discovered beneath the foundations of an old chapel in the woods, evidence suggests the bones could be linked to a decades-old case of a missing local teen. Homicide cop, Jane Munro—pregnant and sharply attuned to the preciousness of life—hopes the grim discovery will finally bring closure to the missing girl’s family. However, for a group of old school friends once dubbed the Shoreview Six by the media—it threatens to expose a terrible pledge made on an autumn night almost 50 years ago. These friends are all now highly respected and affluent members of their communities. All have rich and extended families. None expected this dark chapter in their past to ever surface again. But as Jane and forensic anthropologist Dr. Ella Quinn begin to peel back the layers of secrets and close in on the truth, the group begins to fracture. And they discover just how far each might go to guard their own secrets.
Q: I read somewhere that The Unquiet Bones was inspired by an actual unsolved disappearance & murder in Canada. How much truth is in this novel and how much of it is fiction?
A: The spark of the idea for THE UNQUIET BONES comes from the real murder of 16-year-old schoolgirl Rhona Duncan. In 1976 Rhona—a friendly and popular teen—was walking home from a party with her friend in a safe North Vancouver residential neighborhood. But she never made it home that night. The next morning, she was found dead (raped and strangled) outside a house just three away from the safety of her own. Her murder remains a mystery to this day. But while THE UNQUIET BONES was sparked by Rhona tragic death, my story is entirely fictional, and inspired in large part by my own experience. I went to school in an area not far from Rhona’s home when I was around the same age as she was. I remember her neighborhood of the past, and how safe it seemed. I know the music and fashion and trends and kids of that time. And I wanted to spin a tale of friends who believe an old secret from that time is safe, until bones are found, and their group—their old pact—begins to crumble as a cold case cop closes in.
Q: You were a journalist in both South Africa & Canada. What was it like being a journalist in both countries? Would it be fair to say that your journalism career helped with writing your mystery thriller books?
A: My journalism background trained me to reach word and story targets, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. It also familiarized me with various editing, deadlines, and production processes, and taught me how to constructively process criticism. And it provided some great fiction ideas.
Q: If it’s not too early to ask, are you currently writing your next book and if so, can you reveal any details about it?
A: I’m currently finishing off edits for a twisty psychological suspense novel due to be released in September 2024. My hope is that readers who enjoyed THE MAID’S DIARY will love this one! It’s a story about Chloe Cooper, a somewhat lonely and quirky bartender/dog walker who has trouble navigating social currents, and who becomes parasitically fixated on her new neighbors—a glamorous ‘It’ couple who has just moved in across the street. But of course, things are not what they seem, and when Chloe witnesses a murder, things turn very dangerous for all involved. I also have a short story coming out with Amazon Publishing in March/April 2024 – THE GHOST WRITER—and two novellas in the works.
Q: What would be helpful advice for anyone wanting to write mysteries like you do?
A: For me, one of the best tips would be to read and to keep reading stories in the genre you want to write. It helps to internalize genre-specific elements like pacing, voice, POV use, tense use, planting fair play clues, end-of-chapter hooks, placement of twists, etc. And just start writing—put that proverbial pen to paper. Because sometimes you don’t know what you need to know until you get going, and then when you hit a hitch, you can figure out what to research further and ask.
Q: Does Hollywood have the rights to your work? I could see The Unquiet Bones becoming a great limited series on HBO, Starz & Showtime. Also the entertainment industry needs original content again.
A: I have had works optioned for film/television but so far nothing concrete has come from it. And thank you—seeing THE UNQUIET BONES on screen would of course be something of a dream come true.
Loreth Anne White is an Amazon Charts, Washington Post and Bild bestselling author of thrillers, mysteries, and suspense. With over 3 million books sold around the world, she is an ITW Thriller Awards nominee, a three-time RITA finalist, an overall Daphne du Maurier Award winner, Arthur Ellis finalist, and winner of multiple other industry awards.
A recovering journalist who has worked in both South Africa and Canada, she now calls Canada home. She resides in the Pacific Northwest, dividing time between Vancouver Island, a ski resort in the Coast Mountains, and a rustic lakeside cabin in the Cariboo.
When she’s not writing or dreaming up plots, you will find her on the lakes, in the ocean, or on the trails with her dog where she tries—unsuccessfully—to avoid bears.
The Unquiet Bones
Loreth Anne White
Montlake
Amazon Publishing
9781662518003, $28.99, HC, 351pp
https://www.amazon.com/Unquiet-Bones-Loreth-Anne-White/dp/1662518005
Synopsis: When human bones are found beneath an old chapel in the woods, evidence suggests the remains could be linked to the decades-old case of missing teen Annalise Jansen.
Homicide detective Jane Munro (pregnant and acutely attuned to the preciousness of life) hopes the grim discovery will finally bring closure to the girl's family. But for a group of Annalise's old friends, once dubbed the Shoreview Six by the media, it threatens to expose a terrible pledge made on an autumn night forty-seven years ago.
The friends are now highly respected, affluent members of their communities, and none of them ever expected the dark chapter in their past to resurface. But as Jane and forensic anthropologist Dr. Ella Quinn peel back the layers of secrets, the group begins to fracture. Will one cave? Will they turn on each other?
The investigation takes a sharp turn when Jane discovers a second body--that of the boy long blamed for Annalise's disappearance. As the bones tell their story, the group learns just how far each will go to guard their own truth.
Critique: A deftly crafted and simply riveting read from fist page to last, "The Unquiet Bones" by Loreth Anne White will prove of particular interest to fans of psychological suspense murder mysteries with memorable characters and more unexpected twists and turns than an Oklahoma tornado. "The Unquiet Bones" is an especially and unreservedly recommended pick for community library Mystery/Suspense collections. It should be noted for personal reading lists that "The Unquiet Bones" is also readily available in a paperback edition (9781542038577, $16.99) and in a digital book format ($5.99).
Editorial Note: Loreth Anne White (www.lorethannewhite.com) is the author of The Maid's Diary, The Patient's Secret, Beneath Devil's Bridge, In the Deep, In the Dark, The Dark Bones, and A Dark Lure. With more than three million books sold around the world and translations in over twenty languages, she is an ITW Thriller Awards nominee, a three-time RITA finalist, an overall Daphne du Maurier Award winner, an Arthur Ellis Award finalist, and the winner of multiple other industry awards.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Midwest Book Review
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"The Unquiet Bones." Internet Bookwatch, Mar. 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A791052529/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=db4a48f3. Accessed 26 June 2024.
White, Loreth Anne. The Maid's Diary. Montlake. Mar. 2023. 380p. ISBN 9781542034456. pap. $16.99. SUSPENSE
Told in alternating time lines from before and after a bloody event, this Vancouver-set thriller features Kit Darling, a maid and woman scorned. Kit is leading a fairly contented life when she enters a new client's house and sees a portrait of the owner, a famous skier who hurt her in the past. She takes the unique intimacy provided to maids and delves deep into the couple's secrets. Unfortunately, Kit is unlikable and inconsistently written, oscillating between a talented manipulator and villain and a broken, lonely woman. Her life outside the immediate action seems undefined. Chapters shift perspectives, including Kit's, told from her diary. The style of the diary jars readers out of the flow of action, as Kit breaks the fourth wall, speaking to the diary and describes events in an elaborate and unrealistic manner. Nevertheless, White builds suspense and tension effectively, and this moves the story through its weak details and an unnecessary side plot featuring a detective's infirm husband. A compelling and interesting concept hindered by poor character development.
VERDICT: Libraries with large thriller collections, or where other titles by White (The Patient's Secret) are popular, may want to consider it, but most can skip.—Catherine Field
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 Library Journals, LLC
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Field, Catherine. "The Maid's Diary." WebOnlyReviewsLJ, vol. 147, no. 11, 4 Nov. 2022, p. 1. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A725813556/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=568324de. Accessed 26 June 2024.
The Patient's Secret
Loreth Anne White. Montlake, $12.95 trade paper (410p) ISBN 978-1-5420-3406-7
Inspired by real events, this exceptional psychological thriller from White (Beneath Devil's Bridge) centers on therapist Lily Bradley and her psychology professor husband, Tom, who live with their two children in Story Cove, British Columbia. When Tom finds the body of a female jogger on the beach, a broken string of beads in her hand, Sgt. Rue Duval, the lead police investigator on the Jogger Killer case, believes the woman could be the serial killer's latest victim. Rue identifies the deceased as a single mother whose 16-year-old son, Joe, recently started a relationship with the Bradleys' 12-yearold daughter, Phoebe. Tom and Lily suspect each other of hiding secrets related to the murder and mutually agree to protect their secrets, determined to preserve their family. Meanwhile, the number of suspects grows as the police search for a match to the broken strand of beads. White does a superb job keeping the reader guessing as she peels back the layers of a seemingly perfect family to reveal the shocking truth. Suspense fans will want to see more from this talented author. Agent: Amy Tannenbaum Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Mar.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 PWxyz, LLC
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"The Patient's Secret." Publishers Weekly, vol. 269, no. 1, 3 Jan. 2022, p. 23. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A690097822/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=cf43b106. Accessed 26 June 2024.
Loreth Anne White. Montlake, $12.95 trade paper (372p) ISBN 978-1-5420-2129-6
The 1997 murder of 14-year-old Leena Rai in a small Canadian town propels this intriguing thriller from White (In the Deep). After Clayton Jay Pelley, a school guidance counselor, confessed and pleaded guilty, the up-and-coming police detective on the case, Rachel Hart, fell into a downward spiral that led to psychiatric treatment, divorce, and alienation from her daughter, a classmate of Leena's. Moreover, it resulted in her resigning from the force and retiring to a farm where 24 years after the crime she has achieved some serenity living with her psychiatrist. Then the host of a true crime podcast approaches her for an interview after interviewing Clayton. Only now, from the very first episode, Clayton steadfastly denies his guilt. The podcast shatters a conspiracy of silence surrounding Leena's murder, unearthing secrets that throw suspicion on the credibility and possible culpability of several community members and revealing potential evidence that someone else, still at large, may well be responsible for the crime. The suspenseful, multilayered plot is matched by fully realized characters. White consistently entertains. Agent: Amy Tannenba/im.Jane Rotrnsen Agency. (May)
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"Beneath Devil's Bridge." Publishers Weekly, vol. 268, no. 12, 22 Mar. 2021, p. 61. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A656810539/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=69286c96. Accessed 26 June 2024.
White, Loreth Anne IN THE DEEP Montlake Romance (Fiction None) $12.95 10, 27 ISBN: 978-1-5420-1969-9
A troubled heiress is charged with the murder of her newlywed husband.
Two years after the drowning of her young daughter and the subsequent collapse of her marriage, Ellie Tyler is beginning to put her life back together. She meets Martin Cresswell-Smith, a property developer, in the lobby of the hotel her family owns in Vancouver following a disastrous dinner with her father. Martin seems to offer all that Ellie needs: a second chance after years of self-medicating through her depression and a bit of romance. Ellie ignores slight indications that Martin might not be all he claims to be and offers to become an investment partner in his struggling plans for a resort development in Australia, which she can fund because of her father’s wealth. The two marry quickly, but once Ellie arrives in Australia, everything unravels. Death threats toward the couple signal the resort is clearly not wanted by the community, and Martin becomes abusive. Ellie suspects he might be drugging her to disorient her. But before she can determine what to do, Martin’s brutally stabbed and tortured body is found floating in the marsh he owns, and Ellie becomes the prime suspect. In her latest thriller, White deftly shifts from the present-day murder trial to flashbacks of Ellie and Martin’s relationship, as well as from Ellie’s point of view to that of Lozza Bianchi, the local police officer investigating the murder. This page-turner is tightly written with a moody sense of place in the small coastal community, but it is the numerous twists that will keep readers thoroughly absorbed.
A satisfyingly creepy psychological thriller.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2020 Kirkus Media LLC
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"White, Loreth Anne: IN THE DEEP." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2020. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A635240037/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=ad54ba50. Accessed 26 June 2024.
In the Deep
Loreth Anne White. Montlake Romance, $12.95 trade paper (398p) ISBN 978-1-5420-1969-9
This stunning thriller from White (The Dark Bones) opens in February 2021 at the New South Wales, Australia, supreme court, where Ellie Cresswell-Smith is about to stand trial for the murder of her real-estate mogul husband, Martin. Flash back 16 months to the Agnes Basin, New South Wales, where senior constable Lozza Bianchi retrieves Martin's stabbed, mutilated body from the sea. In another flashback, to early 2019, Ellie and Martin meet in Vancouver, Canada. Wealthy Ellie, who's recovering from the drowning of her three-year-old daughter and a divorce, is smitten. Ellie marries Martin in Las Vegas, Nev., and they move to New South Wales, where she invests heavily in his resort development there. Meanwhile, she must deal with giant bats, poisonous jellyfish, and spiders, as well as Martin's physical abuse and probable infidelity. The trial, Lozza's investigation, and the events leading up to Martin's murder are told in superbly imagined alternating narratives. Convincing character development and a denouement worthy of Agatha Christie make this a winner. White has outdone herself. Agent: Amy Tannenbaum: Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Oct.)
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"In the Deep." Publishers Weekly, vol. 267, no. 34, 24 Aug. 2020, p. 53. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A636080966/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=8b5fa6e5. Accessed 26 June 2024.
In the Dark
Loreth Anne White. Montlake Romance, $9.99 trade paper (452p) ISBN 978-1-5420-0383-4
White (The Dark Bones) employs kaleidoscopic perspectives in this tense modern adaptation of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. Nine people are invited to a free getaway at a remote lodge in the wilderness of British Columbia. They quickly discover they're all connected by a dark moment from their pasts, and whoever invited them wants to punish them for their lies. Several days later, hunters find the wreck of the group's crash-landed floatplane in the forest and a corpse inside with a knife in his neck. Royal Canadian Mounted Police sergeant Mason Deniaud must piece together what happened as he and local search and rescue manager Callie Sutton look for survivors. White's structural sleight of hand as she shifts between narrators and timelines keeps the suspense high but occasionally veers into the contrived, and the fast-paced mystery loses momentum in the final third. Despite these frustrations, Christie fans will find this taut, clever thriller to be a worthy homage to the original. Agent: Amy Tannenbaum, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Dec.)
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"In the Dark." Publishers Weekly, vol. 266, no. 43, 28 Oct. 2019, p. 83. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A605790165/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=14cc2457. Accessed 26 June 2024.
The Girl in the Moss
Loreth Anne White. Montlake Romance, $12.95 trade paper (441p) ISBN 978-1-50390163-6
A simple fishing trip in rural Canada becomes a disturbing busman's holiday when former cop Angie Pallorino and her boyfriend, homicide detective James Maddocks, encounter a skeleton instead of trout in White's third edgy romantic thriller (after The Lullaby Girl). The skeleton is linked to a 24-year-old cold case, and Angie, who's trying to resurrect her career after being banished from the Victoria, B.C., police force, is asked to research the case by the victim's grandmother. Angie sees this as an opportunity to not only establish herself as a private investigator but also get some space from her relationship; she loves James but resents and envies him for still having a police job, and has a complicated past that has made her slow to trust. Returning to the scene of the possible crime, Angie risks danger to interview an ominous assortment of river guides and local bullies, all terrifyingly intent on preventing her from learning the truth. This fast-paced and suspenseful novel with unexpected twists will send new readers back for earlier installments in the series. (June)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
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"The Girl in the Moss." Publishers Weekly, vol. 265, no. 16, 16 Apr. 2018, pp. 77+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A536532734/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=5d5b1178. Accessed 26 June 2024.
‘The Unquiet Bones’ by Loreth Anne White | Mystery Pick of the Month
by Lesa Holstine
Jan 03, 2024 | Filed in Reviews+
0
★White, Loreth Anne. The Unquiet Bones. Montlake. Mar. 2024. 351p. ISBN 9781662518003. $28.99. SUSPENSE
In April 2023, excavations at a British Columbia ski resort uncover the bones of a woman. As a cold case, it’s assigned to Sergeant Jane Munro of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Jane is a veteran homicide investigator whose fiancé disappeared six months earlier on a solo hiking trip without knowing that Jane is pregnant. After an incident at work, Jane was reassigned to cold cases as a team of one. Now working with four others, she focuses on a young woman who disappeared five decades ago. In 1976, Annalise Jansen vanished after a night of partying. Statements from her best friends, then known as the Shoreview Six, pointed to a young man who disappeared on the same night—but when his remains are found, the mystery deepens. Scientific advancements may now reveal secrets that have remained hidden for decades, because the bones have a story to tell. Who will uncover that story first: Jane or ambitious TV reporter Angela Sheldrick? VERDICT Fans of Louise Penny should try this gripping story from White (The Maid’s Diary) that combines the best elements of a cold-case investigation with a well-developed suspense novel.