Book Review: The Bone Riddle by Sara E. Johnson

American forensic odontologist Alexa Glock is enjoying her work as a traveling examiner for Auckland’s Forensic Service Center. While identifying human remains is hardly the most cheerful of occupations, she finds great satisfaction in being able to bring peace to grieving families as well as in helping the police apprehend killers. Her growing relationship with Detective Inspector Bruce Horne is also a plus, as is her appreciation for the country where she’s now employed.

Whether fortunately or otherwise, she’s not the only American to become enamored of life in New Zealand. As she’s informed at a barbeque, many of her fellow citizens have descended on the remote nation in peak Ugly American fashion, to the discontent of the locals:

“You know about Peter Thiel? He bought up Wanaka.”

 

“Who is Peter Thiel?” Alexa asked. 

 

A dog barked from a couple gardens over.

 

“Mr. PayPal,” Aurora said. “New Zealand is the in place to bug out. Your LinkedIn CEO and a biggie at Google are here too. They call New Zealand ‘apocalypse insurance.’”

 

Alexa hadn’t realized she should be so concerned about the state of the States.

 

Patch guzzled his beer. “There’s this California-based company that built a three-hundred-person bunker north of Christchurch,” he said. “Their website is all about mass extinction and threat levels. Wish they’d build their bunkers in their own country.”

Alexa’s latest case actually involves one of these bunkers. A caretaker has discovered a decomposing body in the secure bolt hole belonging to billionaire Harlan Quinn. Alexa is called in to determine both the identity of the dead man and the circumstances of his death. The bunker itself, as well as the estate, are opulently appointed with all the latest high-tech trimmings. So it seems incredibly odd that no one knows who the dead man is or how he got into the bunker in the first place.

Quinn’s family and closest staff back in California insist he’s in Germany for a series of meetings. His wife Audrey is so adamant he’s alive that she refuses to even release his dental records so that Alexa can rule out a match. But Alexa doesn’t need records to realize the dead man didn’t come to his end by misadventure. As she examines his remains, she discovers that regardless of who he might actually turn out to be, he was definitely murdered.

The plot thickens as a stash of deadly, illegal weapons is discovered on the estate. With the body count rising and gang members beginning to terrorize our investigators, Alexa must race against time to stop a killer from getting away with an almost perfect murder.

Complicating matters further for Alexa is the fact that Bruce wants to take their relationship to the next level:

Bruce was spending this coming weekend in Rotorua with his daughters Denise and Sammie. Last night, while he was frying steaks, he suggested she come with him. She choked on her beer. Meeting Bruce’s daughters reminded her of meeting Rita, her stepmother. She’d been about the same age as Bruce’s youngest, thirteen. Alexa hadn’t spoken, smiled, or made eye contact with Rita. “Your daughters don’t want to meet me.”

 

“Sure they do,” he said. “Sammie loves CSI.”

 

“That show gets it all wrong,” she said.

Alexa’s baggage makes it difficult for her to think clearly on the subject, so she flings herself into her work instead. She’s a good investigator, as The Bone Riddle’s meticulous attention to detail makes clear. Our protagonist loves nothing more than geeking out over the latest advances in her field. Between that, her utter lack of knowledge on anything she doesn’t care about and her often awkward responses to social cues, she’s a poster girl for high-functioning neurodiversity, an often under-represented trait in fictional heroines.

I also appreciated the accurate representation of how Americans are often viewed abroad, and how clueless Alexa is as to not only what’s going on in her own country but the international ramifications thereof. It’s easy, living in America, to center only our domestic news and to consign the rest of the world to an afterthought. News and opinions abroad take a much more balanced view of the issues that affect our planet. This novel serves as an excellent reminder that there’s a much bigger, deeply interesting world outside of our own petty interests, and that we ought to act with thoughtfulness, empathy and good manners while exploring it.