What do you think?
Rate this book
Tally Whyte #4
The Bone Man
When a human skull is found inside a clay Anasazi pot more than eight hundred years old, Tally Whyte, after the forensic reconstruction of the face reveals the victim to be one of her friends, searches for answers, leading her to New Mexico where the truth is revealed, for a deadly price. Original.
358 pages, Paperback
First published August 28, 2007
1 person is currently reading
43 people want to read
About the author
Vicki Stiefel
16 books802 followersAuthor also writes under Sanna Brand
Award-winning author Vicki Stiefel now also writes as Sanna Brand, including Regency Romances, THE BOND (Book 1, The Secret Tales), THE DECEPTION, and now, THE SEER. Vicki’s s fantasy romance series, The Made Ones Saga, launched with ALTERED, continued with CHANGED, and climaxed with ASCENDANT.
Vicki continues work on her Afterworld Chronicles and her award-winning mystery/thrillers feature homicide counselor Tally Whyte.
Vicki tapped into her love of knitting to produce Chest of Bone The Knit Collection and co-write 10 Secrets of the LaidBack Knitters.
After running The Writers Studio with her late husband, William G. Tapply, Vicki taught fiction and modern media writing for six years at Clark University.
She grew up in professional theater and planned to become an actress. Instead, she slung hamburgers, managed a scuba shop, and became a college professor. She is a mom to two wonderful humans and a furry pack. Her passions for scuba diving, fly fishing, knitting, and horses pop up in her novels, as do chocolate, bourbon, and lobster. Currently, she's playing with her menagerie while working on THE UNSEEN (as SANNA BRAND) , the fourth book in The Secret Tales.
Award-winning author Vicki Stiefel now also writes as Sanna Brand, including Regency Romances, THE BOND (Book 1, The Secret Tales), THE DECEPTION, and now, THE SEER. Vicki’s s fantasy romance series, The Made Ones Saga, launched with ALTERED, continued with CHANGED, and climaxed with ASCENDANT.
Vicki continues work on her Afterworld Chronicles and her award-winning mystery/thrillers feature homicide counselor Tally Whyte.
Vicki tapped into her love of knitting to produce Chest of Bone The Knit Collection and co-write 10 Secrets of the LaidBack Knitters.
After running The Writers Studio with her late husband, William G. Tapply, Vicki taught fiction and modern media writing for six years at Clark University.
She grew up in professional theater and planned to become an actress. Instead, she slung hamburgers, managed a scuba shop, and became a college professor. She is a mom to two wonderful humans and a furry pack. Her passions for scuba diving, fly fishing, knitting, and horses pop up in her novels, as do chocolate, bourbon, and lobster. Currently, she's playing with her menagerie while working on THE UNSEEN (as SANNA BRAND) , the fourth book in The Secret Tales.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 15, 2013
I could not finish this book. I was not even reading it, got a mp3 checked out from the library and listened to the previous books. Was really really excited to listen to this one and couldn't even finish the second part of the recording. The book was slow with lots of unwanted info and a completely new hobby that hasn't existed in the earlier books. I think the person reading actually made it worse also. I fell asleep in a crowded bus just listening to this book!!! I would use it instead of a sleeping pill!!
February 5, 2010
If you like this series of books, take my advice. Read the book until Tally leaves for New Mexico, or even stop after Izod man appears, read the last paragraph or two, and skip the rest. In fact, you may just want to skip the whole book, I suspect you could read the next book in the series (which isn't out yet, but I hope is better than this one) and not have missed much by skipping this one.
I was so terribly disappointed in this book. There were lots of unanswered questions at the end of the last one, and this book barely mentions them. Instead, it invokes the paranormal way too much, and rivals Jack London's dogsledding books for the amount of abuse inflicted on a main character. The only part of the book I really enjoyed was the Coyote plotline, but I doubt Coyote will be a recurring character so it was just a brief fling of enjoyment.
I don't know much about Native American history, and from this book, I doubt I've learned anything more. It was just a really weird book and abandoned everything I came to love about Tally and her career.
I was so terribly disappointed in this book. There were lots of unanswered questions at the end of the last one, and this book barely mentions them. Instead, it invokes the paranormal way too much, and rivals Jack London's dogsledding books for the amount of abuse inflicted on a main character. The only part of the book I really enjoyed was the Coyote plotline, but I doubt Coyote will be a recurring character so it was just a brief fling of enjoyment.
I don't know much about Native American history, and from this book, I doubt I've learned anything more. It was just a really weird book and abandoned everything I came to love about Tally and her career.
November 3, 2012
I rarely give a book a one rating but dang, this book was boring. The main character Tally, who was supposed to be an educated woman, kept making many uneducated decisions. She just kept putting herself in one stupid situation after another and was constantly being beat up, shot at or cut up. Plus it was really hard keeping up with everyone who she had had a relationship with. Probably will pass on anymore Tally stories.
March 18, 2018
**spoilers- don't read this unless you've read the book**
This book was sooooo HARD to get through. I loved the three others in the series and felt that I knew Tally (the main character) pretty well by this point. She was cool, level headed, insightful, logical. This book blew all of that out of the water. There were times I was literally yelling at the character because of her stupidity! She was rash, impulsive, reckless, etc. It drove me bonkers that she would throw herself into one situation after another without THINKING! She was led entirely by emotion. Another point that I had a hard time with was that with all the "bad guys" in the book, it seemed like she was always one moment away from being raped. Every bad guy she encountered engaged her in some sort of physical assault that would undeniably lead to her rape. I guess in my opinion, men hellbent on killing people don't often stop to drop their pants. And for the love of Pete, how many times would it take a person to figure out how a dang Taser works. The astounding number of times she pushed the stupid trigger over and over in this book drove me crazy. If it doesn't work the first time, you realize it has a safety, you then disarm the safety the next time you attempt to use it. But Tally just couldn't figure it out, not until the very last moment when her virtue was hanging in the balance from an egomaniacal, murderous, artifact stealing rapist.
I also didn't appreciate the "supernatural" vibe. I get it, I get why the author did it. But it just didn't track with the other novels in the series. I suppose there was a slight bit of it in the previous book, when dealing with murdered girl Rose and her supposed otherworldly influence on Tally, but this goes above and beyond. It just seemed like the situation and story line didn't track well with what I thought her character was. I was very disappointed. I know no author likes to read reviews like this, but it is my personal truth. She should have stuck to what Tally was best at, helping others through grief and solving mysteries... not turn her into an incapable, impetuous, damsel in constant distress.
This book was sooooo HARD to get through. I loved the three others in the series and felt that I knew Tally (the main character) pretty well by this point. She was cool, level headed, insightful, logical. This book blew all of that out of the water. There were times I was literally yelling at the character because of her stupidity! She was rash, impulsive, reckless, etc. It drove me bonkers that she would throw herself into one situation after another without THINKING! She was led entirely by emotion. Another point that I had a hard time with was that with all the "bad guys" in the book, it seemed like she was always one moment away from being raped. Every bad guy she encountered engaged her in some sort of physical assault that would undeniably lead to her rape. I guess in my opinion, men hellbent on killing people don't often stop to drop their pants. And for the love of Pete, how many times would it take a person to figure out how a dang Taser works. The astounding number of times she pushed the stupid trigger over and over in this book drove me crazy. If it doesn't work the first time, you realize it has a safety, you then disarm the safety the next time you attempt to use it. But Tally just couldn't figure it out, not until the very last moment when her virtue was hanging in the balance from an egomaniacal, murderous, artifact stealing rapist.
I also didn't appreciate the "supernatural" vibe. I get it, I get why the author did it. But it just didn't track with the other novels in the series. I suppose there was a slight bit of it in the previous book, when dealing with murdered girl Rose and her supposed otherworldly influence on Tally, but this goes above and beyond. It just seemed like the situation and story line didn't track well with what I thought her character was. I was very disappointed. I know no author likes to read reviews like this, but it is my personal truth. She should have stuck to what Tally was best at, helping others through grief and solving mysteries... not turn her into an incapable, impetuous, damsel in constant distress.
October 18, 2020
Actual Rating: 2.5 Stars
December 5, 2007
THE BONE MAN (Licensed Invest-Tally Whyte-New Mexico-Cont) – DNF
Stiefel, Vicki – 4th in series
Leisure Fiction, US Paperback, 2007 – ISBN: 0843959371
First Sentence: More than 365 days had passed since Veda died
*** Tally Whyte had been the founder and director of the Massachusetts Grief Assistance program. After taking some time off, she has come back to visit and is immediately attracted to the case of a human skull that has been found in an ancient Anasazi pot. Not only is the skull contemporary but, when reconstructed, looks exactly like Tally’s friend, supposedly on a buying trip in the southwest. Tally is off to the southwest.
*** It starts with a huge coincidence, and by page 79, I was so annoyed with this book, I couldn't continue it. The protagonist was annoying in the extreme, her constant, strident overreaction to the men in her life trying to protect her drove me mad. She did things that just didn’t make sense to me. The plot was weak and, even as little as I read, at times, absurd. The dialogue was awful. Too many other books were waiting for me to have spent any more time with this one.
Stiefel, Vicki – 4th in series
Leisure Fiction, US Paperback, 2007 – ISBN: 0843959371
First Sentence: More than 365 days had passed since Veda died
*** Tally Whyte had been the founder and director of the Massachusetts Grief Assistance program. After taking some time off, she has come back to visit and is immediately attracted to the case of a human skull that has been found in an ancient Anasazi pot. Not only is the skull contemporary but, when reconstructed, looks exactly like Tally’s friend, supposedly on a buying trip in the southwest. Tally is off to the southwest.
*** It starts with a huge coincidence, and by page 79, I was so annoyed with this book, I couldn't continue it. The protagonist was annoying in the extreme, her constant, strident overreaction to the men in her life trying to protect her drove me mad. She did things that just didn’t make sense to me. The plot was weak and, even as little as I read, at times, absurd. The dialogue was awful. Too many other books were waiting for me to have spent any more time with this one.
April 19, 2022
That was one of the worst books I have read in awhile. There are no likeable characters, it kept repeating facts (hearing it once was helpful, more than once makes me think the author thinks we're idiots), some of the phrasing sounded weird and the dialogue was all kinds of terrible and it's quite frankly, the dumbest mystery plot ever. It was like the author thought 'what is the dumbest thing that they can do in this situation?' and then had them do it. Every time. It's like every person Tally knows thinks she's an incompetents child who needs to have her life controlled, because that's all they do. Not to mention every character talks to her like she's an idiot.
You can only carbon date something that was an organic, carbon based life form at one point. Pottery shards were never living, thus you can't carbon date it.
You can only carbon date something that was an organic, carbon based life form at one point. Pottery shards were never living, thus you can't carbon date it.
February 7, 2008
Grief counselor, Tally Whyte, has quit her job and is grieving herself. Still she manages to get tangled up in a series of murders ranging from Massachusetts to Zuniland in the Southwest. With this suspenseful mystery, she starts having and believing in visions, so it adds a little something to the story.
December 16, 2021
I am so glad I didn't read earlier reviews, that panned the book. I couldn't put it down! I sat and read it in one sitting. Yes, Tally makes some stupid choices that put her in danger, but she was just very determined to find out who killed two of her friends. I for one, am very sorry that the author stopped writing this series.
March 5, 2011
Andrea Bates is the worst narrator ever!!! She made Tally sound sarcastic and cheap. I don't know if I'd be able to finish listening to this. Have to see if I can find it in ePub to save my poor ears.
April 17, 2012
Fast paced, and fun to read. The ending was a bit of an anti-climax, which seems to happen fairly often with books I read, for some reason. But that did not take anything away from my enjoyment of the story, in general.
December 30, 2013
this woman is such a unbelievable character - I Just want take her and shake some reason into her.
February 21, 2011
Kept me reading, and I liked Tally Whyte. May look for another book by this author!
June 28, 2013
Not my usual cup of tea...it was okay...not very exciting.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews