“The Lost Bones” is the fifth book in Ruhi Choudhary’s Detective Mackenzie Price series but this is the first book of Choudhary’s I have ever read.

“The Lost Bones” starts off with Detective Price finding the body of a woman dumped in the trunk of her car, with a note addressed to her. The victim is Sophie Fields, the fiancée of her co-worker Austin, who has been missing for over a year. While she is still trying to piece together what had happened to Sophie, another body turns up — this time of her childhood nemesis Courtney, who used to bully her. In a race against a clever killer, who seems to be ahead of her team all the time, Detective Price must do her utmost best in finding the killer before they claim more lives of those people whom she cares for.

The whole story was quite intriguing with a few twists and turns. I couldn’t actually guess the identity of the killer until the end. The story also has a dark undertone to it, which is exacerbated by the way Detective Mackenzie’s character has been written. From what I gather, she has undergone some traumatic incidents during her childhood and they all seem to haunt her consistently.

Author Choudhary has explored the effects trauma can have on a person’s psyche and what kind of hold it has on that person’s life choices. That’s the main thing I liked in this book, which is otherwise a regular police procedural. The various nuances of trauma and how it affects each person differently is the theme around which the whole story revolves. The author likes to put many of her characters through tough events and depict the base instincts of human beings through them.

Overall, though it was slightly darker for my taste, I actually loved meandering through this book’s tale. Do check this book out if you like to read dark thrillers which explore the baser nuances of human nature.