(Kathryn Fox, Macmillan, $32.95 tpb, ISBN 9781405038225, November) ****

Kathryn Fox’s third crime novel following Malicious Intent and Without Consent does not feature Dr Anya Crichton, the main character in the first two books, but instead centres on detective sergeant Kate Farrar, whom we last met in Malicious Intent. Kate has returned to work after her ordeal in that novel and some much-needed leave and has a new partner, detective constable Oliver Parke. The novel starts with the discovery of a dead woman in a burnt-out house who turns out to be an unknown mother. Given the author’s interest in forensic medicine, you will get to learn a lot about the effects of fire on the human body and a number of other forensic points as well. Kate and Oliver are then moved onto another seemingly highly political case of a missing daughter. How these separate cases come together makes up the plot of this excellent new novel. I have to admit to being a fan and I found Skin and Bone to be ‘unputdownable’—the characters and their problems kept me interested to the very last page. The setting is Sydney and Fox demonstrates a good knowledge of the city and the seamier side of what happens there. If crime novels with a forensic and police procedural background are your thing, then Skin and Bone is not to be missed.

Peter Milne is deputy managing director of Abby’s Bookshop and a crime aficionado

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2007, Thorpe-Bowker