Review: Ink and Bone by Lisa Unger

Title: Ink and Bone by Lisa Unger
Publisher: Touchstone
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Thriller, Supernatural (Ghosts & Psychics)
Length: 352 pages
Book Rating: B

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

An instant page-turner (Lisa Gardner) that straddles the line between thriller and horror…sure to appeal to a wide range of readers, including Stephen King fans. (Booklist, starred) A young woman’s mysterious gift forces her into the middle of a dangerous investigation of a little girl’s disappearance.

Twenty-year-old Finley Montgomery is rarely alone. Visited by people whom others can’t see and haunted by prophetic dreams, she has never been able to control or understand the things that happen to her. When Finley’s abilities start to become too strong for her to handle – and even the roar of her motorcycle or another dazzling tattoo can’t drown out the voices – she turns to the only person she knows who can help her: her grandmother Eloise Montgomery, a renowned psychic living in The Hollows, New York.

Merri Gleason is a woman at the end of her tether after a ten-month-long search for her missing daughter, Abbey. With almost every hope exhausted, she resorts to hiring Jones Cooper, a detective who sometimes works with psychic Eloise Montgomery. Merri’s not a believer, but she’s just desperate enough to go down that road, praying that she’s not too late. Time, she knows, is running out.

As a harsh white winter moves into The Hollows, Finley and Eloise are drawn into the investigation, which proves to have much more at stake than even the fate of a missing girl. As Finley digs deeper into the town and its endless layers, she is forced to examine the past, even as she tries to look into the future. Only one thing is clear: The Hollows gets what it wants, no matter what.

Review:

Ink and Bone by Lisa Unger is an intriguing mystery with supernatural elements (ghosts and psychics).

Hoping to gain some type of control over the psychic phenomena she is experiencing, college student Finley Montgomery moved from Seattle to live with her grandmother in The Hollows, NY.  Eloise is a well-known psychic who often teams up with private detective Jones Cooper to help solve unsolvable crimes.  With her grandmother advising her, Finley is beginning to gain control over the whispers she hears and the ghosts she sees, but she is still struggling to accept that these experiences are a “gift” instead of an unwelcome curse.

Finley has a bit of a troubled past but things have begun to turn around for her since she moved to The Hollows.  Somewhat of a wild child who rides a motorcycle to escape the ghosts and their whispers, she is plagued by an odd squeak/clink noise that she is having trouble identifying.  Some of her efforts to track down the source of the sound temporarily quiet the clamor but it never completely vanishes.  Equally puzzling is the spirit of young boy who quietly sits in a corner playing with a toy train.  Her grandmother believes the two things are related to the missing persons case she is working on with Jones.  Eloise is certain that Finley is physically connected to the case and she convinces Jones and Finley to work together.

Jones has recently been hired by Merri Gleason to find her eight year old daughter Abbey who was kidnapped during the family’s vacation in The Hollows. An intense search and subsequent investigation turned up little evidence and the case has long since gone cold.  Certain Abbey is still alive, she turns to Jones and Eloise to find her missing daughter.  With Eloise failing to feel any psychic connection to case, Jones reluctantly teams up with Finley to see what they can uncover.  Used to working alone, he grudgingly agrees to let her tag along when he revisits the scene of the kidnapping and he is slightly unnerved by Finley’s unexpected reaction.  Following her rather vivid experience, she is convinced the police overlooked vital clues during the search and she finally persuades Jones to concentrate their efforts in the rural area that is inhabited by locals who are essentially living off the grid.  Before they get too far into the investigation, another person goes missing and they cannot help but wonder if this latest disappearance is just a coincidence or if it is somehow related to their case.

Despite its rather slow start, Ink and Bone by Lisa Unger is an engrossing mystery with an eerie supernatural element.  The characters are superbly developed and imbued with vibrant, life-like traits and human frailties. The tension builds to a fever pitch as the investigation hurtles to a thrilling climax that is full of shocking plots twists.  An absolutely outstanding mystery with a mystical touch that fans of the genres do not want to miss.