The Bone Forest

Written by Dan Padavona

Narrated by Daniela Acitelli

A missing woman and a graveyard of bones.

Can Thomas Shepherd stop a deranged madman?

On the night Karley leaves town to meet with her friends, she disappears. Her husband swears they have the perfect marriage, but Sheriff Thomas Shepherd isn't convinced. And the husband doesn't have an alibi for the night Karley vanished.

Thomas joins forces with his girlfriend, private investigator Chelsey Byrd. But as they search for Karley, the case takes a dark turn. Someone is dumping bodies into a forest pond outside Wolf Lake. Is the murderer behind Karley's disappearance?

Thomas and Chelsey race to stop an unhinged killer. Nobody in Wolf Lake is safe until they solve the investigation. But they aren't alone in the night.

The killer is watching their every move.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dan Padavona
• Release date: Sep 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822606050

Reviews for The Bone Forest

[Dr. Mike · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I don't know what to think about this series. There was a lot of casual misogyny throughout the series from the very first novel. This was made even more apparent by the relative lack of profanity despite the dark subject matter--except when it was directed to demean women. The last three books escalated this misogyny to include several rapes (not in graphic detail but still explicit). Just like the three novels prior to this one involved child abductions.

I found most of the supporting players little more than one-dimensional stock characters--including the villains. Most people were described as surly, uncooperative, and disrespectful. But my biggest complaint is that a lot of the dialogue was extremely bulky and dated, especially the younger characters (the lack of profanity from even the "gangbangers" seemed disingenuous). Such as calling someone "dog" has not been in the popular lexicon since Randy Jackson overused it on early seasons of American Idol and truthfully it was passe years before the show even aired. Unfortunately, the narration makes the clunky dialogue seem even less adroit.

I liked Lavar as a character but his actions and discourse did not fit his particular archetype. Growing up in a major city, I know several people (hell, I'm related to several people) like Lavar and their disposition are much more complex and their conversation is much trendier. Even Scout, until the last 2-3 books, spoke like she was much younger than a teenager or someone who was intellectually disabled. Their conversations reeked as if written by someone who spent very little time interacting with young people and did not really understand their temperaments or motivations.

Ultimately, I completed the entire book series but I did not comment until after I listened to the last novel, in case these shortcomings were corrected in the later books. It did not really get better.