The Skeleton Box

Anthony and Barry Award-winning author Bryan Gruley returns with the third novel in his critically acclaimed Starvation Lake mystery series.A series of mysterious break-ins is plaguing the small town of Starvation Lake. Someone is slipping into the homes of elderly people when they're out playing Bingo. Oddly, the intruders take nothing, despite evidence that they rifle through personal files. Worry turns to panic when a break-in leads to the death of a beloved citizen. Phyllis Bontrager is found dead in the home of her best friend, Bea Carpenter, mother of Gus Carpenter. Bea, suffering from worsening dementia and under the influence of sleeping pills, remembers little of the break-in. Her son, editor of the local newspaper, must pursue a terrible story: the death of a woman he has known all his life, who also happens to be the mother of his ex-girlfriend, Darlene. With the help of Luke Whistler, an ex-Detroit Free Press reporter who came north looking for slower days and some old-fashioned newspaper work, Gus sets out to uncover the truth behind Mrs. B's death and the “Bingo Night Break-Ins.” What he doesn't know is that Whistler has his own agenda, and the secrets he’s determined to unearth—involving the long-ago killing of a nun—could forever change Gus’s perceptions about Starvation Lake and even his own family.