Sleeping bones Book

One thing that might be overlooked in Katherine V. Forrest's fine mysteries about Police Detective Kate Delafield is her love for'and pride in'the city of Los Angeles. Through her eyes we experience faded remnants of the movie industry (The Beverly Malibu ), gay West Hollywood (Murder by Tradition, and other locations rich in history and character. In Sleeping Bones), she actually takes us into prehistoric LA and the La Breya Tar Pits, where dinosaurs once roamed the Miracle Mile.

As are the majority of Kate Delafield mysteries, Sleeping Bones is well crafted and peopled with relatively interesting characters. But like The Beverly Malibu, this book has historical significance as well, using not only the La Breya Tar Pits as the scene of a murder, but going into detail about the Peking Man fossils, which disappeared from China in 1941 and the Rape of Nanking in the second Sino-Japanese War. All of these fascinating historical subjects are woven into a modern murder story, which must be unraveled by Kate and her new partner Joe Cameron.

The mystery'the murder of an ex-soldier because of his involvement with priceless fossils'is better than average and the solution is actually believable. What is more interesting is Kate's relationship not only with her new partner, but with the murdered man's paleontologist daughter. I mentioned in an earlier review that in Amateur City, Kate has an affair with a woman who is already in a relationship. After reading dozens of other lesbian mysteries, this is still the only "cheating" I have read about. Well, in this one, Kate comes mighty close. It makes me wonder if a separate post about "extra-marital" affairs between lesbians in mysteries might be worthwhile.

And as an extra bonus, Kate learns that she has a full brother that she never knew about. In fact, even her father never knew about him. Odd? Sure, but Forrest explains it well enough to be not only believable, but almost inevitable during wartime 1942. Will the brother appear again? Only the next book will tell.

The bottom line is that, after reading the first 7 or the Kate Delafield mysteries, I have to conclude that Forrest is not only at the top of her field of lesbian mysteries, but very near the top of mysteries period. An incredible feat for a woman that virtually invented the genre. I am already anxious to get on to book number 8. I'll let you know how that goes.

Final Rating: 4.2

Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 930 other lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.