Chesbro's latest thriller focuses on New York's homeless people, specifically on Bone, an amnesiac named for the one thing he clings to, a long bone. A newcomer among the dispossessed, Bone is suspected of beheading several other vagrants as well as a psychiatrist who offered him help. But Anne Winchell, a social worker, and a giant storyteller of the streets named Zulu believe in Bone. These friends win the accuser, Detective Prettyman, to Bone's side, and he descends far underground with the three friends to battle a raving maniac. It's a scene of sheer horror, but perhaps less harrowing than civilization's slide into the ultimate barbarism that is the novel's implicit warning. The author's uncompromising, explicit descriptions of forgotten human beings speaks out for redressing wrongs before it's too late. (Mar.)
Despite some hokey dialogue, bland prose, and a few wooden characters, Chesbro's ( The Cold Smell of Sacred Stone ) latest spine tingler delivers a few quivers. While the Human Resources Administration tries to aid the homeless, a psychopath beheads hopeless derelicts on the streets of New York. A man called Bone, himself a street person, becomes the prime suspect: the period of his amnesia coincides with the serial killings. While trying to regain his memory, prove his innocence, and protect the social worker he loves, Bone prowls the city's underground. Predictable, only intermittently engaging, yet suspenseful and action-filled towards the end.-- REK
