by Pa Rock
Reader
Christopher Rice published his first best-selling novel, A Density of Souls, in 2000 when he was just twenty-two-years old. It was a strong debut effort that quickly established the young man as a writer on the rise. Since the publication of the first book, Rice has gone on to publish six more stand-alone novels as well as beginning several series, including one which is co-writing with his novelist mother, Anne Rice.
Rice's latest novel, Bone Music, is being billed as a "burning girl mystery," an indication that it is the flagship of another series based on a captivating character. That character, in this case, is Charlotte "Charley" Rowe, a young woman who is living in an invented identity, one which she created to cover the tracks of a most unfortunate childhood. Charley was kidnapped by a pair of serial killers as an infant after they had murdered her mother, and she lived in their bloody household until the age of seven or eight when the law enforcement caught up with her captors, killing the father and imprisoning the mother.
Charley then went to live with her biological father, a man who took advantage of her for several years, selling "rights" to her story and helping to create a series of movies which portrayed his daughter as a willing torturer for the people who had kidnapped her - including burning some of their victims, even as the victims lived - hence the name and taunt "burning girl." The torturer allegations were all inventions of the money-focused father. Charley broke with her father as a young teen and went to live with her maternal grandmother in California, the period of her life in which she enjoyed her most "normal" existence.
As this story opens, Charley is an adult living in a remote area of Arizona near Tucson. She has been seeing a psychiatrist named Dylan Thorpe for an extended period of time as she hides from stalkers from her past life and tries to make some sense of who she is and who she wants to be. As the current therapeutic session comes to a close, Dylan gives Charley a special pill which he wants her to take in his presence. He presents it as a medical trial, but one that he believes will be of great benefit to his client.
Charley takes the pill in Dylan's office, and then drives back to her very remote and electronically secure home. After entering the house, she quickly finds that she is not alone, and that one of her celebrity stalkers has made his way into the fortress-like abode. To her surprise and his, Charlotte quickly manages to break his shoulder and tie him up, a feat of strength like none she has ever experienced before. Charley then takes her attacker's telephone and calls the most recently dialed number. Dylan answers.
Later, on the road to find Dylan, she encounters a group of angry, drug-addled bikers and makes quick work of them also. Talking to Dylan again, she learns that the drug he gave her was meant to produce strength and resolve when the emotion of extreme fear is triggered within her. Dylan encourages her to run - and she runs back to the safety of the California seacoast where she spent her teen years.
And then she becomes involved with a cast of protective outlaw characters, her former high school bully, a world-class computer hacker, and a multi-national pharmaceutical corporation - all as a prelude to going after one of the most cunning serial killers in the nation with the aid of the new drug that Dylan had given her.
Charlotte had become weaponized.
Christopher Rice describes Bone Music as a novel that "walks the line between thriller and science fiction." I am a fan who has read most of this author's work, and regardless of how one classifies the latest entry into his unique oeuvre, Bone Music is a gripping and compelling book - Rice's best yet.
Reader
Christopher Rice published his first best-selling novel, A Density of Souls, in 2000 when he was just twenty-two-years old. It was a strong debut effort that quickly established the young man as a writer on the rise. Since the publication of the first book, Rice has gone on to publish six more stand-alone novels as well as beginning several series, including one which is co-writing with his novelist mother, Anne Rice.
Rice's latest novel, Bone Music, is being billed as a "burning girl mystery," an indication that it is the flagship of another series based on a captivating character. That character, in this case, is Charlotte "Charley" Rowe, a young woman who is living in an invented identity, one which she created to cover the tracks of a most unfortunate childhood. Charley was kidnapped by a pair of serial killers as an infant after they had murdered her mother, and she lived in their bloody household until the age of seven or eight when the law enforcement caught up with her captors, killing the father and imprisoning the mother.
Charley then went to live with her biological father, a man who took advantage of her for several years, selling "rights" to her story and helping to create a series of movies which portrayed his daughter as a willing torturer for the people who had kidnapped her - including burning some of their victims, even as the victims lived - hence the name and taunt "burning girl." The torturer allegations were all inventions of the money-focused father. Charley broke with her father as a young teen and went to live with her maternal grandmother in California, the period of her life in which she enjoyed her most "normal" existence.
As this story opens, Charley is an adult living in a remote area of Arizona near Tucson. She has been seeing a psychiatrist named Dylan Thorpe for an extended period of time as she hides from stalkers from her past life and tries to make some sense of who she is and who she wants to be. As the current therapeutic session comes to a close, Dylan gives Charley a special pill which he wants her to take in his presence. He presents it as a medical trial, but one that he believes will be of great benefit to his client.
Charley takes the pill in Dylan's office, and then drives back to her very remote and electronically secure home. After entering the house, she quickly finds that she is not alone, and that one of her celebrity stalkers has made his way into the fortress-like abode. To her surprise and his, Charlotte quickly manages to break his shoulder and tie him up, a feat of strength like none she has ever experienced before. Charley then takes her attacker's telephone and calls the most recently dialed number. Dylan answers.
Later, on the road to find Dylan, she encounters a group of angry, drug-addled bikers and makes quick work of them also. Talking to Dylan again, she learns that the drug he gave her was meant to produce strength and resolve when the emotion of extreme fear is triggered within her. Dylan encourages her to run - and she runs back to the safety of the California seacoast where she spent her teen years.
And then she becomes involved with a cast of protective outlaw characters, her former high school bully, a world-class computer hacker, and a multi-national pharmaceutical corporation - all as a prelude to going after one of the most cunning serial killers in the nation with the aid of the new drug that Dylan had given her.
Charlotte had become weaponized.
Christopher Rice describes Bone Music as a novel that "walks the line between thriller and science fiction." I am a fan who has read most of this author's work, and regardless of how one classifies the latest entry into his unique oeuvre, Bone Music is a gripping and compelling book - Rice's best yet.
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