Skin and Bones - Kathryn Fox

Review by C.S.Hyde

This third novel by Kathryn Fox follows detective Kate Farrer as she returns to work after 3 months off following her kidnapping and torture by an intelligent psychopath.

Skin & Bones brings Kate straight back to work in homicide with a house fire which reveals the corpse of a young woman who has been bludgeoned, frozen and then burnt to death.

Kate is a no nonsense detective who does not like to let anyone into her personal life and you find yourself firmly planted on her side as she deals with panic attacks and her new partner Oliver who turns out to not be the type of man she thinks he is.

The pair are abruptly removed from the case and put onto one pulled in as a favour by a rich local entrepreneur who wants them to find his missing step-daughter. How can this be a case for homicide?

As Kate gets increasingly frustrated, the case takes its own twists and turns, revealing stomach churning atrocities and the detectives realise this is a case for homicide after all.

A thoroughly gripping read, Kathryn Fox is certainly one to watch. The story of Kate Farrer's kidnapping is told in Kathryn's first novel Malicious Intent.