Brooklyn Bones begins with an incident any parent can relate to. A teenage daughter calls about something terrible and, of course, it is all your fault. The terrible thing gets your attention and then the story slows down a little but definitely keeps your attention as the main characters are fleshed-out.

Then the action speeds up and never stops until the end. The book is Brooklyn Bones and the author is Triss Stein. This book is the first in a series featuring Erica Donato.

So who is Erica Donato? She is a Brooklyn girl. She married a firefighter from the old neighborhood, was widowed young, went back to school, discovered a life she never knew existed, and decided to pursue a Ph.D. in history. As part of this process she has a fellowship at a Brooklyn museum.

She also bought a rather dilapidated house on the edge of Park Slope and lived there with her teen-age daughter. During renovations they discovered a skeleton of a teenage girl hidden since the 1960s. Erica uses her historian skills to learn some parts of the story but runs into a decades old crime and cover-up. It soon becomes apparent that Erica is in over her head but she is just unable to drop it.

I thought the story was well-told but not everyone agrees. I found only two reviews online but it is still early for reviews since the book will be released in early February. By the way, one review is favorable and one not favorable so this is the tie breaker.

The two reviews are:

http://pfaeffle.com/brooklyn-bones-by-triss-stein/

http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-4642-0122-6

Triss Stein writes for the Women of Mystery Blog so see if you like her writing and you might want to pre-order this now or just wait until it comes out.

My thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and Netgalley for letting me read an advanced copy.