Triss Stein

You might think that a tale revolving around old letters and stained glass windows (in a cemetery, no less) would be peaceful and leisurely. Well, not in Brooklyn. There's beauty, yes, and some dust, but little peace for Erica Donato, who's got a dissertation to finish, a part-time job that's just been complicated by a pompous academic, a teenage daughter (need I say more?), and unpleasant dramas ripping through her neighborhood and personal life. There's a lot to enjoy here about the show more evolution of Brooklyn up to the current day, and how this enormous, diverse borough keeps being shaped and remade by the people who decide to make it their home.

I loved the way the issue of grieving was addressed. Sometimes, in soft-boiled mysteries, the deaths of characters seem not to be anything more than plot points, excuses for the story to begin. Erica's own grief over the loss of her daughter's father years ago is triggered by the loss of a family friend, another father and husband. The way she negotiates her own memories with her daughter, and tries to reach out to a family whose grief she understands too well is handled very sensitively and realistically, I think, which added depth to the story and a parallel line of contemporary family drama to the ones suspected in the past. Come for the mystery, stay for the history! show less

First Line: It began with a sobbing phone call from my daughter, the kind of call every parent dreads.

Erica Donato's teenage daughter, Chris, has been helping the contractor with the renovations on their old Brooklyn brownstone. She calls her mother in hysteria because she just found a skeleton when tearing down an old wall. The skeleton is of a young girl, and from the looks of the other items with her, she's been holding her teddy bear since sometime in the 1970s.

The police seem to think show more that Erica and Chris should have no interest in this long-dead girl, but Chris becomes increasingly focused on learning her identity. When the house is broken into, Erica-- a young widow and over-age history Ph.D candidate who's an intern in a local history museum-- sends her daughter off to art camp to get her out of harm's way. But it becomes crystal clear that, as much as Chris wants the young girl identified, someone else is willing to kill to keep the dead girl a Jane Doe.

This book has a fascinating setting, letting us get to know both present-day Brooklyn as well as some of its colorful history, and I also enjoyed reading about the work Erica does for the local museum. The cast of characters is colorful, especially the grumpy old reporter who reluctantly decides to help Erica in her search for information about the girl. Erica's daughter Chris is a typical teenager awash in hormones. From one paragraph to the next, you never know when it's time to hug her to bits... or to pretend that she's temporarily insane.

For all its strengths, however, I had two problems with Brooklyn Bones. One concerns the mystery itself. I had a difficult time believing that the bad guys would go to such extremes to cover up an old crime when the police didn't seem to be all that interested in solving it.

The second problem I had is with the main character herself. Although her behavior is often summed up as "the Brooklyn coming out in her," it usually felt more like a flaky sort of bravado-- over the top, often ill-advised, and sometimes inappropriate. Since I don't know anyone from Brooklyn, this behavior of Erica's may be right on the money, but I do have my doubts. However, I did want to shake her until her teeth rattled over one thing in particular. Her house had been broken into, someone close to her had been murdered, and a family friend had insisted that Chris be sent to art camp to get her out of harm's way. So what does she do when Chris wants to come home for a few days in the middle of all this? Erica lets her come back! The "female in jeopardy" scenario (often referred to as "fem jep") where a female stupidly puts her life in danger (or in this case, her daughter's life) is one that I do not like, and I liked it even less in this book since it involved a mother dealing with her child's safety.

All that being said, I did find a lot to like about this book, and I'm curious to read the next book in the series. Hopefully Erica will part ways with the dreaded fem jep! show less

Erica Donato is an urban history graduate student, balancing the completion of her dissertation with being a single mom. Her research focuses on 1930s Brownsville, during a period of time when the area was heavy with organized crime. A stop at a library in the area leads Erica to meet a teenager named Savanna, a young woman with a bright future ahead of her. But when Savanna is attacked, Erica wonders if there might be a connection to some young men who accosted her one day when she was show more leaving the library. And when she realizes he was in a class with Savanna's mother years ago, she finds herself even more connected to the story and the case. Erica Donato is curious and never one to let her knack for research go to waste...

Typically in a murder mystery, the search for the suspect leads us down a path of finding someone who is depraved or sinister. But so many times, crimes are committed as a result of circumstance. Or, in the case of younger criminals, sometimes they just don't know that they have any other choice. This story takes us down that other path--the path where social pressures and the folly of youth can lead people to harm others just as easily as a criminal nature. And those are paths that are much more difficult for us to follow, not only when it comes to figuring out "whodunnit" but also accepting the answer once we find it.

This is the third Erica Donato book, but you don't necessarily need to have read any of the others. I hadn't before reading this, and I had no problems at all following and understanding the story. It's very self-contained. show less

This is the first Tess Stein mystery I’ve read and it won’t be the last. I wasn't aware that this was the third book in the series until after I finished this one. I purchased the first book of this series last night.

While Erica Donato is doing research on her dissertation for her Urban History Ph.D., she finds herself getting more than she bargains for. She’s researching crime back in the 1930’s in the town of Brownsville which was the home of the infamous Murder, Inc. Mobsters. show more She finds not much has really changed, the town is still a dangerous place to be. While doing her research, she stumbles on a beautiful library that stands out in this dismal town. She goes in to look around and they offer her a tour, she meets wonderful young girl, Savanna who takes her on the tour and gives her the history of the library. She’s quite taken with this young woman, who lets it slip out that she has just been awarded a scholarship to an Ivy league university.

Later she hears that Savanna is brutally beaten and sees her mother making a plea on the news for help in solving this awful crime. Erica is sure she's met this woman before. She finally remembers that she had taken a class with her a long time ago at a local university. She decides to reach out to Savanna's mother and they forge an unlikely friendship with a common interest, who hurt Savanna.

There was never a dull moment in this book. Poor Erica found herself back in Brownsville, the last place she wanted to be and each time it got more dangerous for her. There were a couple of sub-plots that both tied into that same era in Brownsville. There is a lot of suspense and I found all the characters to be quite likeable. I’m looking forward to reading the first two books in this series and I hope there will be a fourth one.

I would like to thank Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for providing me with an e-galley for my honest review. show less