Book Poison: "Boneyard", by Michelle Gagnon

7runninghorse was kind enough to lend me this book club read, and I am so, so grateful to her because I did not spend a penny on this stupid and rather repugnant murder "mystery". Not since my near-scientific fascination in 6th grade with the plot devices in "Murder, She Wrote" have I seen such blatant and boring plot contrivances, or such cliched and un-engaging characters (and even more frustrating, the characters who were slightly interesting/sympathetic were the ones who suffered the most and whose stories ended in the most inconclusive ways).

The thing that really gets me about this book is that the violence and injustice in it should be shocking to me. I shouldn't be reading about the serial killer's collection of his victims' eyeballs and thinking, "Ho hum, stupid." I shouldn't be reading about the torture and murder to gay teenaged prostitutes and thinking, "Another two-dimensional character bites the dust." I should be disgusted and outraged, and I thought the main character, or at least *some* character in the book should be as well. Instead, we were treated to the cliched anti-gay policeman who had covered up evidence, the television journalist who only cared about getting the story and being promoted, and the main character who showed almost no emotion about the case through the entire story. Part of this was professional detachment on her part, but it started to grate on me that she showed almost no interest in helping out these poor kids until the end of whole thing, when everything got out of control and she confronted the serial killer.

Oh, and the serial killer: when you have only so many characters in the story, but are skipping around between their points of view and writing the serial killer's point of view without mentioning his name... it's not too hard to deduce who the killer is. It's the only character whose point of view hasn't been presented in connection with his name. It also doesn't help that, like "Murder, She Wrote", the killer had a pivotal but small role to play in the first act of the narrative, and then showed up again every now and then until he was discovered. It's always the quiet but helpful ones!

Also: The serial killer targets teenaged boys, and when I learned that the plucky sidekick's son is an adorable teenaged boy, I crossed my fingers that the killer wouldn't kidnap him and hold him hostage in the last act. And guess what happened! Damn you, author! Why must you fulfill my expectations in this disappointing way?

Anyway. Skip this read if you value suspense, logic, and a good story. I finished the book, but only to find out if I was right about everything. And, unfortunately, I was.