Bet Your Bones - Review

I requested Bet Your Bones by Jeanne Matthews from Poisoned Pen Press through netgalley.com

Partial Overview (from the publisher): "A wedding on the lip of a Hawaiian volcano sounds risky to Dinah Pelerin, the bride’s best friend and maid of honor. The bride, Claude Ann Kemper, has bet her heart that she’s found the right man at last. The groom has gone all in on a real estate deal he believes will set him and his new wife up for life. A group of Native Hawaiians claims that the sacred bones of an ancestral king are buried on the land the groom plans to sell and one of them has vowed do whatever it takes to stop him...."

These are just some of the situations in this in second mystery of a series (reading the first isn't a prerequisite). I was attracted by the Hawaii setting and the mention of myths. Myths are protagonist Dinah Pelerin's specialty as she studies for her anthropology degree.

Her undaunted curiosity (a given for most scientists) had Dinah in the Philippines, so she didn't have too far to go to get to her friends wedding. Her deep concern for her best friend Claude Ann draws her to the Big Island. But Dinah's trip carries a lot of baggage—and not just her own. She worries over Claude Ann's sudden marriage to a man she's known for only six weeks; she broods over the events surrounding Claude Ann's first marriage and feels she needs to clear the air with her friend; then she is alarmed by protests about the business activities of Claude Ann's intended, Xander. Dinah's curiosity kicks in and she tries to learn more about Xander and the protesters, and whether Claude Ann is blundering into a bad, maybe even dangerous, marriage. Events escalate to a murderous state, and Dinah even becomes a suspect.

Along with Dinah, Claude Ann and Xander, this third-person presentation has strongly written characters. Each is distinctive, from the remonstrative protest leader, Eleanor, to Xander's grown children, his business partners, and Claude Ann's born-again daughter, Marywave. There was a point midway through that I grew a bit impatient when new people were introduced, but each was necessary to the whole story; I had a few nice A-ha! moments as things fell into place. The great dialogue also had some witty bits as well as down-home vernacular from Claude Ann and Dinah (They grew up in Georgia).

I also found it refreshing to increase my education while reading this mystery. Matthews does an excellent job of weaving actual mythology into the story (She lists the sources of the myths in the Acknowledgements). These pieces of factual information are sprinkled throughout the book, and always relate to Dinah's thoughts and next actions.

While Dinah's manner of flushing out the bad guy felt a bit occluded, Bet Your Bones is an intricate mystery woven neatly into the lava, smoke and culture of Hawaii. A satisfying and interesting read.