Bones & Bloodlines is a fun cozy mystery and it intrigues me enough to read additional books in this series later, but think there was some things that just kept it a solid 3 star. Some of those things are that Alberswerth wrote this as if we knew Jude and Audie West. There’s still some puzzles to me at least some of their past and I wish we had more world building about them and their pasts. Also, there are some threads left unexplored that I assume will be fully explored in future books.
Bones & Bloodlines follows married couple Jude and Audie West, that explore their clients genealogy. They are in Missouri when they are in a graveyard and find bones. Calling it in they are told it is the bones of a missing girl Cassie Powers. Cassie went missing 30 years ago, many thought she ran off with her boyfriend at the time, Hunter Kane. Some though, thought that Hunter killed her because Cassie was going places and he was from the wrong side of the tracks. We follow Jude and Audie as they not only figure out what happened to Cassie, but also about their client’s missing relative from the 1800s.
The character development of Jude and Audie needs some more work. I know that Jude is estranged from his family for mysterious reasons. Audie wants to find them. And I know that Audie’s first husband died, but initially it was written as if she didn’t love him since she mentions his touch versus Jude. I was very confused often while trying to nail down these two characters. I did think some of the characters we get in this, Sheriff Carmichael, the local gruff junkyard man, the librarian, and others really came alive in this one.
The writing style took a bit to get used to. I don’t know what to call it, it’s third person, but slightly off in some places since it sometimes moves to a first person narrative choice. There’s also some weird writing choices which as I said, Alberswerth writes this as if we know Jude and Audie already and we should know that Audie makes men with cigars back up often. I recall that phrase because I went…well that’s a weird way to write this. The flow was smooth though even with that, the book moves at a steady clip with bite size chapters. I honestly didn’t care about the mystery of Jude and Audie’s client’s relative, but fully focused on Cassie.
I liked that this book was set in Missouri, I was definitely intrigued at how Alberswerth described the town.
The ending was a surprise, and as I said, left some questions about things that I think will come up in future books, mostly about Jude and Audie.
