CAGE OF BONES - Tania Carver

First line: "It was a house of secrets."

CAGE OF BONES is the third book in Tania Carver's series featuring Detective Inspector Phil Brennan and psychologist Marina Esposito. A demolition crew is about to take down an old abandoned building until a discovery is made in the basement. A grisly discovery.

"As DI with Essex Police's Major Incident Squad - MIS - [Phil Brennan] had witnessed on a regular basis the damaged and the deranged destroy themselves and others with tragic inevitability. Seen loving family homes mutate into abattoirs. Comforted victims whose lives had ended even though they still lived. Attended crime scenes so horrific they gave a glimpse of hell.

And this ranked as one of the worst."

What they discovered in that basement was a cage of bones holding a feral child. But that is only the beginning of this horror. The man who caged the boy isn't an amateur and he wants the boy back; Brennan has to find the monster who has perpetrated this crime. Throughout his investigation, something is nagging him, something he can't explain but is nonetheless real and pulling him away from his family. What he discovers may change his reality forever.

The writing team of Tania Carver have reached down into the depths of darkness to create yet another stellar chapter in the lives of Phil Brennan and Marina Esposito. The chilling effects of their story-telling will keep readers up late into the night, with all the lights in the house lit. 

The complexity of the plot keeps the suspense building throughout the course of the novel, while the sympathetically crafted characters pull readers in to their trials and struggles. CAGE OF BONES is not a choice between plot and character, Tania Carver offers up the whole package.

The writing is intense, driving home the truly heinous nature of the crimes and the evil that lurks behind them. Dialogue is sharp and flows naturally - or as naturally as unnatural crime scenes can be.

Tania Carver turned over many rocks to find the darkest evil and expose it in CAGE OF BONES. The result is an adrenaline-inducing, thrilling story that will stimulate readers senses and haunt their daydreams long after the last page.

CAGE OF BONES (ISBN: 978-1605984063) is not yet available in the United States (it will be published by Pegasus in February of 2013) but the UK publication can be purchased through some independent retailers.