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A Bone to Pick Book Summary and Study Guide

Detailed plot synopsis reviews of A Bone to Pick


When Aurora "Roe" Teagarden attends Jane Engle's funeral, it is more of a kindly gesture to someone who used to belong to the Real Murders club with her before the club stopped meeting. Roe considered Jane a friend, but didn't really know her that well. So she is startled when Jane's lawyer informs her that she is the heir to Jane's estate. Suddenly, Roe goes from scraping by on a part-time librarian's salary to an heiress with a home, nice jewelry and $550,000 in savings.
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Roe isn't quite sure what to do with herself and her newfound wealth. However, she realizes that all is not as rosy as it seems when Jane's lawyer keeps hinting that there may be some problem that she needs to solve for Jane. When Roe goes to check out Jane's house, it has been broken into and searched, but nothing was stolen. Roe is determined to figure out the secret and eventually discovers Jane's hiding place and pulls out - a human skull.

As Roe waffles between handing the skull over to the police or tossing it in the river, her life takes a few unexpected turns. Her ex-boyfriend, a police officer, moves in across the street with his new, very pregnant wife; she starts dating a minister; her mother gets married; her best friends gets engaged; her new neighbors are throwing welcoming parties for her; she inherits a cat who soon has kittens; everyone in town is gossiping about her relationship with Jane and her inheritance - the list goes on and on. Needless to say, Roe doesn't spend a whole lot of time investigating who the owner of the skull was until the rest of the skeleton is discovered at the end of the street...

This is the second installment in the Aurora Teagarden mystery series (Real Murders is #1) and it is a pleasant, fast read. I read it in a couple of hours and enjoyed it, but it isn't anything that is very memorable. The mystery is rather lacking because we don't know who the skull belongs to, but Roe doesn't really go out and try to figure out who it belongs to - the answer just kind of falls in her lap at the end of the story. Charlaine Harris does introduce some interesting new characters, however, and she keeps up with a few of the old ones from Real Murders so it was nice to see time passing in the small town. I would have liked to see a bit more of a plot regarding the mystery side of this "mystery", but this book is more of a fiction novel with a little bit of a mystery on the side. Still an enjoyable read, but I must say that the Lily Bard series (Shakespeare's Landlord, Shakespeare's Champion, etc.) is far superior than the Aurora Teagarden series.


The review of this Book prepared by Debbie



Chapter Analysis of A Bone to Pick

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Plot & Themes

Composition of Book descript. of violence and chases 20%Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives 30%Feelings, relationships, character bio/development 30%How society works & physical descript. (people, objects, places) 20% Tone of story    -   very upbeat How difficult to spot villain?    -   Challenging Time/era of story:    -   2000+ (Present) What % of story relates directly to the mystery, not the subplot?    -   50% Special suspect?    -   best friend Misc. Murder Plotlets    -   solving long-past murder    -   Proving innocence of very obvious suspect Kind of investigator    -   amateur citizen investigator Kid or adult book?    -   Adult or Young Adult Book Any non-mystery subplot?    -   life in small town Crime Thriller    -   Yes Murder Mystery (killer unknown)    -   Yes

Main Character

Gender    -   Female Profession/status:    -   teacher Age:    -   20's-30's Ethnicity/Race    -   White/American

Setting

United States    -   Yes

Writing Style

Accounts of torture and death?    -   generic/vague references to death/punishment Amount of dialog    -   roughly even amounts of descript and dialog

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Charlaine Harris Books Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s).
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