Red Bones
Crime, Mystery
Ann Cleeves
Shetland Island, Book # 3
Pan Books
2009
ebook
482
English
August 28, 2018 November 13, 2018
An island shrouded in mist and a community with secrets buried in the past . . .
When a young archaeologist studying on a site at Whalsay discovers a set of human remains, the island settlers are intrigued. Is it an ancient find - or a more contemporary mystery?
Then an elderly woman is shot in a tragic accident in the middle of the night. Shetland detective Jimmy Perez is called in by her grandson - his own colleague, Sandy Wilson.
The sparse landscape and the emptiness of the sea have bred a fierce and secretive people. Mima Wilson was a recluse. She had her land, her pride and her family. As Jimmy looks to the islanders for answers, he finds instead two feuding families whose envy, greed and bitterness have lasted generations.
Surrounded by people he doesn't know and in unfamiliar territory, Jimmy finds himself out of his depth. Then there's another death and, as the spring weather shrouds the island in claustrophobic mists, Jimmy must dig up old secrets to stop a new killer from striking again.
About the book
Red Bones is the third book in the series about the Shetland Islands, small islands at the north of Scotland. This book talks about an archaeologist site in which two young women believe that a merchant family lived in the area and they’re trying to find the remains. But instead of walls and coins, they find human remains. Are they ancient or recent?
In the meantime the owner of the house where the site is located, is found dead. Is it an accident or a homicide?
To make things worst, the body of one of the two women is found, suicide or homicide?
This is an interesting plot even if it starts a little bit slow. I also watched the first episode of the TV series since, when I was reading, it has just come up on TV in Italy and I need to say that I’m happy that I watched the series after finishing the book. The killer between the book and the series is different, I think they took something from this book and something from the first book to make the first episode and the characters are very different (for example the daughter of Inspector Perez’s partner is much older than the one in the book and also her mother isn’t in the series and I hope she won’t disappear in the books).
So I like the book, I was able to read it faster at the end because it was better than the beginning. The book is more focused on Sandy, one of the inspector Perez’s men since the woman who dies is his grandmother. I like the mystery behind the site, I like how Sandy’s grandma is represented, I like her behavior (or rather what it is said about her by the other members of the family since she dies at the beginning) and I like the mystery behind the wealth of one of the most powerful man on the island.
I liked the third book a little bit more than the first two, I should give 3.5 stars but I didn’t code them 
but I find the plot a little bit slow especially at the beginning. Maybe it is the relaxed behavior of the islands that affect the author.
