Book Review: Where the Bones Lie by Nick Kolakowski
Title: Where the Bones Lie
Author: Nick Kolakowski
Release date: March 11th, 2025
*Huge thanks to Nick for sending me a digital ARC of this!*
If you’ve followed my reviews for the last almost-decade, you’ll know I’m not really a true crime fiction reader. My reading desires typically include the necessity of supernatural/paranormal/horror elements and the straight up crime stuff sometimes causes me to drift away and not stay focused.
Saying that, there’s been some books that’ve been excellent in the crime world that’ve excited me, the most recent being the Bishop Rider series of books that Beau Johnson has been releasing.
When Nick reached out to see if I’d take a stab at this one, I agreed for one big reason. Nick can write his ass off. In every thing I’ve read of his, he’s night and day one of the best writer’s you’ll ever read. The quality of storytelling, the quality of character development and the careful crafting of the narrative is simply unparalleled.
What I liked: The novel follows Dash, former Hollywood clean-up man, now failing stand-up comic. He’s trying to put his former life in the rearview mirror and get on the straight and clean bus, but that’s simply impossible. The opening scene shows him faltering at a stand up set, when his old boss, Manny, arrives and offers him a job. It opens up old trauma, a job gone wrong, that pushed Dash away from the life, but cash is cash and once it’s done, he convinces himself that he’s done for good.
Here’s where things take a turn. He gets a phone call, from the daughter of Ken Ironwood. His body was found after having been missing for decades and she wants Dash’s help to figure out who took him out.
Kolakowski weaves a very strong cat-and-mouse game from that point on. Chalk full of humor, action and clues, the pace was frantic and it wasn’t long before I was fully immersed. Even when things were moving along and I thought for sure that I knew what was going on, a new wrinkle would arrive and I’d have to rethink everything I thought I knew.
The ending is a massive wrap up of a bajillion loose ends that worked to really put a nail in a number of coffin’s. It was a cinematic ending to a novel that had bulldozed its way to that crazy conclusion.
What I didn’t like: There were hints of paranormal stuff at the beginning, which faded away not long after, and I was a bit saddened, because it really made you question whether Dash was crazy or not. It worked out well, when all was revealed, but for this reader, I was saddened it wasn’t a bigger angle later on.
Why you should buy this: If you’re like me and not a typical crime reader, but are looking to dip your toes into something and see how you dig it, this would be the perfect book to take for a spin. A remote setting, two unlikely people working together, and a ton of crazy twists and turns, Kolakowski’s delivered a superb novel that’ll have people zipping through it.
5/5
