In Her Bones

In Her Bones by Kate Moretti is a highly recommended mystery/suspense novel about a woman on the run trying to uncover the truth.

Edie Beckett, 30, is just trying to live her life out of the spotlight. Fifteen years ago, her mother, Lilith Wade, was convicted of murdering six women, and sentenced to death row. The media frenzy continued after the release of the unauthorized biography by an unknown author. Edie is a recovering alcoholic who keeps to herself, has a co-dependent relationship with her brother, and an unhealthy obsession with the surviving family members of Lilith's victims. She keeps notebooks on their personal information, stalks them online (and in person if possible).

Edie's current obsession is Peter Lipsky, whose wife show more was fatally stabbed by Lilith. She's stalking him online, through a survivor's message board, and collecting information about him and his late wife, Colleen. Colleen's murder is the one that doesn't fit the profile of Lilith's other victims. When Edie meets Peter during one of her reconnaissance missions, she ends up drinking too much and and goes home with him. She leaves before he wakes up, but is later found murdered that morning. She doesn't remember much of the night and now she is the prime suspect for his murder. Edie goes on the run while trying to uncover what really happened and who killed Peter.

Edie is a sympathetic, fleshed-out character and the main narrator in the book, although there are also excerpts from the biography of Lilith included and a few from Gil Brandt, the detective who caught Lilith, but also helped Edie. As the novel unfolds, Edie reminisces about her troubled childhood with Lilith while dealing with her current situation. Edie is also clearly a damaged character, and much of this began in her childhood with Lilith.

While on the run rather than talking to detectives, she does make some questionable/interesting choices along the way and has a few stumbles. In her own way, she is a resourceful, smart, and street savvy character. She is clever enough to evade being caught while trying to ferret out the truth about Peter's murder, which also requires her to look back at his wife's murder. Was Lilith responsible for it or is there another killer running loose out there and could Edie now be a target?

I found this to be a well-written, compelling mystery (rather than thriller). The pace is even, rather than fast, until the end, but the steps Edie takes and her reasoning is interesting enough to keep your attention. In Her Bones held my attention throughout. Although I had all manner of guesses and suspects, I didn't have a clue about the ending until just before it happened. Nicely played Moretti!

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Atria Books via Netgalley.
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I felt that this book was a bit jumbled, a bit disjointed. In fact, in one place, at least one paragraph was missing! (That could be because I read this on a Kindle, and perhaps the digital edition was missing the paragraph???)
The story is a psychological thriller about the daughter of a serial killer. The daughter, Edie Beckett, is worried that she will turn out like her mother. She is obsessed with following the lives of the people who were left behind after Lilith killed their family member.
The book didn't really grab and hold my attention like some other psychological thrillers. I had to suspend disbelief on some of the story, especially how Edie was able to break into people's homes, and fly under the radar for so long, especially show more when a cop was watching for her. I had a suspect for a while on the most recent murder, but there was not enough to convince me of my hunch.
There were several characters in the story that seemed tangential, but actually paid a large part in the story. I don't know if the novel had enough meat behind those characters to make their story line believable as part of the larger narrative.
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This is a twisted tale of mental illness, sexual abuse, murder and broken families. When we meet Edie, we learn her mother is in prison after being convicted of a number of murders. Edie, fearing evil is passed on, lives a life in fear of her "potential" by self-medicating and avoiding all personal relationships, except for the too-close relationship she has with her older brother. When a one-night stand ends up dead, Edie, the obvious suspect, seeks to find the real killer. Complicating the matter is the fact that the dead man's wife was one of her mother's alleged victims. There are many twists in this tale that makes it very entertaining.

My Review of “In Her Bones ” by Kate Moretti Atria Books, September 4, 2018

WOW! I loved the unique premise in “In Her Bones” by Author Kate Moretti. Can you imagine having a serial killer as a mother? Someone capable of nursing you when you are sick, but can stab women to death in cold-hearted murder? Add in a dysfunctional brother, who is constantly in your life. What about being obsessed with the families of the deceased and keeping detailed journals?? I read this novel in one sitting. “In Her Bones” is a captivating, intense, dark, twisted, riveting, page turning novel. The Genres for this novel are Fiction, Thriller, Mystery and Suspense. The story takes place in the present and goes to the past when it pertains to the show more characters or events in the story. The author describes her dysfunctional cast of characters as complex and complicated. Given the circumstances, that seems to be an understatement. I imagine that Freud would have a field day with this information.

Edie Beckett tries to stay out of the spotlight, and even tries to stay sober. Someone has written a book about her mother’s brutal murdering sprees, and Edie can’t help be obsessed to see what is going on to those families who are the survivors. As fate steps in, Edie crosses the line, and gets drunk after socializing with one of the victims. Edie finds out he is dead, and she is confident that she didn’t kill him. Or did she? Is she her mother’s daughter? Edie runs to survive, and try to make sense of what happened and find out who the killer is.

I would recommend this book to readers that love a suspenseful , intense and roller coaster of a ride. I received a copy from NetGalley for my honest review. show less

This is such a fascinating book! The charactors are flawed but real. How do you manage to stay sane when your mother is on death row for serial murder? How do you survive such a childhood? This is a fast, wonderful read. Strongly recommended reading.

Moretti writes a forward to In Her Bones that really resonated with me. I, too, am so curious about the family of killers. The daughter of The Happy Face Killer had a show on investigation Discovery (my favorite channel) where she had the family of a killer meet with the family of the victims. It was fascinating! I knew going into this book I would be intrigued. The story is told in 1st person from the daughter (Edie) of a female serial killer (Lilith), with some chapters in 3rd person focusing on the detective, or snippets of books/news articles about Lilith.

I was really uncomfortable (not in a bad way) with being in Edie's head at times. Inside her head are her thoughts, unfiltered. She knows that following the family of her mom's show more victim is creepy and so she doesn't let the outside world know that is what she is doing. However, since we are reading her POV, we know she is doing it! She hacks into their lives, stalks them, and even though she does nice things for them when possible, it doesn't negate the fact its creepy! She knows its creepy which makes it even worse I think. Edie has so many issues stemming from the fallout of her mother's crimes. She dropped out of school, she is an alcoholic, she has commitment issues, and a slew of other things I'm sure a therapist would have a field day with! Her brother also has a slew of issues.

Obviously, there are murders that occur throughout the story. And confusion about the murders (who, what, why). And stalking (because that is exactly what Edie is doing!). None of them are gruesomely described or exploited in writing for shock value or anything, but the tenor of the book is unsettling and might not be everyone's cup of tea! There are multiple things you are trying to figure out throughout the story from whether or not Colleen was actually a victim of Lilith's, who killed Peter, who is WINPA99 and why are they so involved, and who the heck wrote that damn book. Add in the strange relationship Edie has with Tim and you have more questions than there are pages! I didn't see the story ending quite the way it did, but in hindsight, it made perfect sense. Honestly, I didn't correctly guess the answer to most of those questions but the answers made so much sense I was surprised I didn't see it. Even through all this intrigue, the book FELT long. I think there were sections that could have been cut in order to make the book flow. Perhaps they were left there to help confuse and confound the reader further (totally worked) but I found myself skimming a lot through the middle.

 

• POV: 1st, 3rd


• Cliffhanger: no, includes epilogue

authors like Mary Kubica, Gillian Flynn ...then you will probably like In Her Bones!

 


In Her Bones


 

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This book was annoying. I didn’t like the narrator and I didn’t like the plot until about 65% of the way through.