CSI Miami is one of my favorite television shows, so you can tell I’m big on anything to do with forensic crime solving. In that respect, I began reading Skin and Bone with a sense of excitement – hoping to see if my favorite TV genre would translate well to the written word. I am overjoyed to exclaim that this work met and even overshot my high expectations.

Kathryn Fox’s previous two works, Malicious Intent and Without Consent, both dealt with forensic pathologist Dr. Anya Crichton. This work introduces a friend of Anya’s, homicide detective Kate Farrer. Kate has recently returned from a four month leave of absence, explained by a somewhat vague tale of her being abducted. The abduction is barely mentioned in the book, possibly leaving Kate open to be included in Fox’s later books, considering the same universe aspect she’s already used.

The case presented to Farrer and her new partner Oliver Parke (a coy mix-up of the smart cop meets rookie cliché) is quite the doozy, taking literally the entire book from beginning to end to solve in its entirety. In the course of events, two people are murdered, a child goes missing, and several women are drugged and raped. The three seemingly separate cases that start the book eventually are masterfully entwined by the author, leaving almost a sense of being overwhelmed to the reader.

A wide and colorful cast of characters, both detective and suspect, fill the pages with new plot devices at every turn. Drug dealers, undercover cops, mentally unstable children, and wealthy socialites all make appearances here, along with your usual garden variety cast of normal cops and criminals. It plays out in a strange way, with almost everyone introduced being a suspect at some point, even some of the cops. Disappearances, kidnappings, and murders meld into a core of action that keeps the characters with something to do literally the whole way through.

The most effective part of Skin and Bone is definitely Fox’s amazing ability to place red herrings on seemingly every page. What you think about any character in the book can and will change in a heartbeat. The old “can’t put this book down” cliché is built on storylines and plot twists like this, and Fox proved herself to me to be a master of the trade. Even better were the injections of dry wit throughout the book in the form of narrative and one-liners – they gave a nice wry touch to the otherwise serious material, yet never felt forced.

Even up until the very last page, Fox continues to throw new wrenches into the case and character profiles, leading to a sense of excitement all the way from page one until the book is closed. Unfortunately for those of you who sleep on a regular basis, you might not want to close it. I spent quite the all-nighter pulling to read Skin and Bone all in one setting, before inevitably failing and falling asleep on my sofa. Stupid bodily functions. If you’re looking for something to satisfy that mystery-loving sense in your body, you couldn’t do much better than this wonderful read. Go for it.