Bone Key

John Deal #7

by Les Standiford, Scott Brick (Narrator)

In 1931, a storm passes through the Florida straits, soon followed by a devastating explosion aboard a freighter, The Magdalena. Decades later, John Deal, the brooding real-estate developer and hero of eight previous Standiford mysteries, is traveling to Key West to talk over a prospective project with an old friend of his father's, the wealthy entrepreneur Franklin Stone. En route, Deal stops to help a young black man being harassed by police officers on a lonely beach road. Two days later, the young man turns up in Deal's hotel room - dead and clutching a label from a bottle of rare vintage wine, 1929, worth thousands of dollars. As Deal finds out, while trying to save his own life, past and present collide in this mystery where all answers point to a seventy-year-old tale of piracy and murder, and where a former girlfriend suddenly appears for reasons only she knows.

"The action moves so quickly that each scene is like a little gasp for breath. There is art to it, and Standiford makes it look easy." (The New York Times)

Genres: Mystery, Fiction

Audible Audio

First published April 15, 2002

About the author

Les Standiford is a historian and author and has since 1985 been the Director of the Florida International University Creative Writing Program. Standiford has been awarded the Frank O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, a Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in Fiction, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, and belongs to the Associated Writing Programs, Mystery Writers of America, and the Writers Guild.

Reviews

[Martin Bode · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first John Deal novel and I found the characters difficult to swallow. A general contractor acting the part of the hard-boiled detective in a Mickey Spillane novel? The "romance" is never resolved as the shallowly drawn female character departs. Who was she really? I don't think I'll bother with the sequel.

[Meg Vanek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I am not a huge mystery reader but I liked that this one was set in Key West where I spend a lot of time. I was pleasantly surprised that this kept me in suspense and was really a good read while weaving in the atmosphere of Key West.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gonna need to look for the 1st 6 books I think!! Very Enjoyable!!

[MontiLee Stormer]

Another book read by one of my favorite narrators, Scott Brick *purrrrr*, downloaded back in December of 2005 when I was drunk with Audible credits. I think some books you just have to be in a frame of mind to listen to, and maybe now is the time for Les Standiford.

3/26/10

I'm three hours (5 hours to go) into this audio book, and I'm afraid I've bailed. I'm finding it to be the driest mystery I've ever read and I just don't care what happens to anyone anymore. I expect more to be happening right now other than descriptions of wines (and I like wines) and jogging while hung over. Maybe when I clear the rest of my bookshelf this summer, I'll get back to it.

[Jennifer H · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

This was a fun read - another one of those south Florida macho men solving mysteries down in the Keys kind of books. For me, it was just long enough and had just enough going on to be a good book. The author disclaimed at the beginning that he was going to take literary license with the layout of Key West, and he did - I was glad he said that, otherwise I would have thought I'd completely misremembered the island. =)

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bone Key (John Deal #7) by Les Standiford (G.P. Putnam's Sons 2002)(Fiction - Mystery/ Thriller). John Deal tries to solve a mystery where a young black man was killed apparently while in police custody. Nobody will help - and Deal keeps hearing allusions to a seventy year old mystery - and implications that he should know about it. My rating: 6/10, finished 2009.

[Sandi · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a series I have always enjoyed in the past but this particular entry was just so so. I was disapointed that one of my favorite supporting characters did not appear on the page and the current day plot was not really that compelling though I did enjoy the sections on Key West's history.

[Pabloslist]

70 yrs after freighter goes down in FL Keys with 300 cs of Chateau Brian , single bottle sparks torture, piracy, murder

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listened to this on a drive to Florida. The various characters were well woven into the plot but I would rather not have some characters killed off.

[Patt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to this one in the car. We both enjoyed it, fast moving and suspenseful. We both guessed wrong on the identity of the criminal!

[Marjoladue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining. Obviously written a while ago. The scenes in Key West were from the past and fun to read about. A good plot.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

dream sequences didn't make any sense as this was the first novel of his I read. Kind of throws the reader off. It picked up toward the end and the pieces got tied up into a neat little bow.

[Rhona]

8/2005