The Bones of It

The Bones of It is a psychological crime thriller set in present day County Down, Northern Ireland. Sixteen years after the Good Friday Agreement, twenty-two-year-old Scott McAuley, son of ex-paramilitary Duke McAuley, pens diary entries. When Scott is ousted from his politics degree course in Newcastle for joyriding, he returns home to live with Duke for the first time in his memory. When Scott was a baby, loyalist paramilitary Duke was imprisoned for the murders of two young Catholic men and Scott’s grandmother, Isla, became his guardian. Living with Duke, who has reformed and become a counselor, Scott finds it difficult to deal with his father’s abrasiveness. Against this background, Scott begins his story by telling us about Klaudia, a Polish woman he worked with at a garden center after he returned home from Newcastle. He says he wants to put his side of the story straight, as we may have read lies about their relationship in the press. Scott, having found a hair in the shower at his home, which he believed to be Klaudia’s, had become convinced that Duke and Klaudia are seeing each other, it seems. As the narrative reveals, the twist in the book is reveals that Scott is currently in prison, whilst recalling the pivotal moments described that molded him as a young man.

REVIEWS

＂Blackly comic in tone, The Bones of It is a Bildungsroman that evolves into a slow-burning psychological exploration of the mind of a most unlikely killer... an engrossing tale of the consequences of living a life steeped in a culture of violence.＂
The Irish Times

＂The story bends with multiple twists... For Fans of Claire McGowan (who wrote The Fall) and Alex Barclay.＂
Sinéad Gleeson, IMAGE

＂Compelling, compulsive, compassionate.＂
Sue Leonard, Irish Examiner

＂The Bones of It is a devilishly clever mystery that in its own way twists the genre back onto itself as did Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Aykroyd all those years ago...not just a novel to read, it is a novel to experience.＂
Hubert O’Hearn, By the Book Reviews

＂A brilliant crime debut, chilling, compulsive and beautifully written. Fans of The Butcher Boy and The Book of Evidence will find much to love in The Bones of It. A hugely impressive addition to the growing body of Irish crime fiction.＂
Brian McGilloway, New York Times bestselling author