A Bone to Pick is the second Aurora Teagarden mystery. Although Roe, her friends, and fellow Lawrenceton, Georgia denizens continue to grow as characters, her sleuthing abilities remain strictly passive in this installment.

As the story begins Roe learns that she has been bequeathed the not insignificant estate of Jane Engle, a recently deceased member of the now-defunct Real Murders true crime club. In addition to inheriting Jane's bank account, Roe has also come into possession of a small house, a mean cat, and a skull in the window seat.

Although Roe's curiosity about whose skull it is and why it's in Jane's window seat is boundless, her investigative skills, once again, sit firmly in the right-place-at-the-right-time arena. Once again, however, that's all right. The neighbors are quirky, in some cases to the point of near-insanity, establishing the series firmly, if mildly, as Southern Gothic. ( )

While leaving Jane Engle’s funeral, Aurora ‘Roe’ Teagarden was approached by Jane’s lawyer (Bubba Sewell) in order to inform her that Jane had left everything to her. With the inheritance of the money and the house, Roe decided to quick her job at the Library and was considering her option for what to do with the house. It may have been a lot of money, but she wondered if it would be enough to compensate her for dealing with the skull she found in the window seat while she was looking around the house.

*** Book 2 .…. Slow paced and not very suspenseful, just a very sweet mystery about a skull. Got to know Roe and Madeleine (the cat) better while Roe handled every things after inheriting the house. The mystery of the skull was good, but the clues were few and far between and then it was just over. I some how read these first 3 Aurora Teagarden books out of order, so I know that the previous (Real Murders) and the next (Three Bedrooms, One Corpse) are better. This one did tie up some questions I had in book 3 (that is what I get for reading a series out of order). ( )

http://hollybooknotes.blogspot.com/20... ( )

Enjoyable. Once I get into a series I want to finish it ( )

I enjoyed this book probably more than I did the first Roe Teadgarden book, "Real Murders". I thought Roe was better fleshed out and a lot more fun to read about. She felt real to me, this time around, which was a bit of my gripe about "Real Murders". Here Roe Teagarden finds herself mourning the quick turnaround of losing her boyfriend and then finding him married, and his wife pregnant. Roe is hurt, she is jealous, and she is just starting to emerge from that 'mourning' period. About this time, Roe learns she has inheirited a house and a bunch of money from her recently deseased friend Jane. Seems 'friend' is a bit of an understatement. They were more like good acquaintences. But when Roe finds a skull in her new house, she learns Jane has also left her with a new mystery to solve. This was not a long book and reading it was very enjoyable. I was happy with the pace, and the characters, and even the mystery seemed more interesting than the previous one. But the ending, was just kind of boring. There was a lot of stuff going on, which was good, but the actual killer was revealed quickly and it was dull in my opinion. There was no suprise revelations, or reasonings and felt almost like an afterthought. I recall feeling somewhat the same way upon the conclusion to "Real Murders". I was disappointed, I guess. Charlaine Harris can write, really, really write. I just don't feel like the actual conclusion was fleshed out enough. This was just another average cozy and what could have been more, in the end, just wasn't. ( )