Really 3.5 stars, which is a good book with a few issues in my personal gradebook. I definitely liked the team and will follow Detective Kirby if Kane turns this into a series. Other reviewers have complained but I think Kirby's girlfriend was the only extraneous character. The middle third was a bit sluggish but the final third made up for it. I kept changing my mind about the identity of the culprit and there were a couple of nice pieces of authorial sleight of hand. I have high expectations for Kane's next book.

I hope to read other books by this author because this one is excellent.
It's atmospheric, a bit creepy and gripping. I loved the mix of police procedural and psychological thrilling that kept me on the edge till the end.
The setting is vivid and well described, the characters are interesting and the mystery kept me guessing.
An excellent read, highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

I have fallen asleep twice listening to this book, but I'm determined to finish. If it wasn't a book club read, it wouldn't be happening.

This was also my Prime Reading First Pick for the month, and I didn’t realize I had the ARC requested until both popped up on my Kindle. I can be forgetful when it comes to books it seems, and this book is no exception. I am already beginning to forget what I read despite having just finished the book only moments ago.

I thought I was going to enjoy this book, and it did keep my attention at the start. It was once the book seemed to not ever end was when I got annoyed. This follows Detective Lew Kirby who is trying to solve the murder of an elderly woman found in an old asylum. There is a patient who still lives on the property, and the police wonder if this man could have some answers they are looking for.

The woman who was killed was actually a bad person, and it seemed as though no one liked her. All of the stories are her were terrible, and she was just a horrible person. I did not care about her death because of all the atrocities she committed. This was one of the first reasons I did not care about this book, usually when trying to solve a murder, the victim isn’t always the worst or something else in the story makes it worth sticking around for. This book lacked both of those qualities.

I kept reading because I thought the book would get better, but I was wrong. There were side stories and characters I did not care about. There is the former asylum patient who now lives on the property due to squatters rights. There is the woman whose sister died on the property, but no one really knows what happened. Also, there is a man who was killed because he knew something. But he was just a body found. His role was to move the story along, but it did not add anything for me.

This book was not enjoyable for me. I normally like thrillers and the ones from the UK are even better. Hence why I was so excited about this one, but I just felt like the delivery for this book falls flat. I found it hard to care about the characters, their lives, and motivations. The reveal of the killer and all of the background information just was okay because I had given up really caring by the point when I reached the reveal. I didn’t want to stop reading this book, but I was skimming the last 30% because it was not valuable to me.

There is also extra information given about Lew Kirby and his life. Clearly it is meant to carry over to the next books and be something that looms over his head. It is the set up for the series, but I thought it was absurd and just thrown in to make the book interesting. He even has a girlfriend, but she is shown a few times and just doesn’t really seem to be important. After reading this book, I do not plan to keep on with this series nor am I sure I would read anything else by this author.

Thank you NetGalley and Amazon Publishing UK For the ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

After the death of his mother in a house fire when he was seventeen. Raymond Sweet was admitted to Blackwater Asylum. When the place closed down twenty-seven years later and all the patients left. Raymond stayed.

Detective Lew Kirby is assigned the case of the dead woman's body. Found in a bed in the derelict Blackwater Asylum. Kirby also has to deal with issues happening in his personal life.

A mobile phone is found at the scene. It belongs to someone who has not been seen for a few days. Are the two things connected? What will we discover in the depths of Blackwater Asylum.

When you have a backdrop of a derelict asylum in the story, you know your in for a great read. Kane describes the asylum in such a way that you feel you are right there walking the corridors. 

Kane's use of the weather in The Bone Jar is superb and it adds a quality to the story. It gives a mysterious depth to an already creepy storyline. The way the snow seems to envelop everything and take the mysteries.

The Bone Jar is a great mix of mystery and creepiness that gives us the reader plenty to think about.

ARC provided by Thomas & Mercer/Amazon Publishing and S.W. Kane via Random Things Tours. All opinions are mine and freely given.

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07-02: 'The Bone Jar' by S.W. Kane is the first book in the Detective Lew Kirby series, a story that circles around the discovery of an elderly woman's body in an abandoned asylum on the banks of the Thames. As DI Kirby and his partner start digging into the details of the woman's death, a second body turns up in the river nearby.

Secrets begin to unfold regarding hidden rooms, secret experimentation, and the legends that places like Blackwater Asylum so often develop.. that there's a force about them. Ghosts of the past. Or at least, an inescapable vortex that seems to draw others to their doom.

When Kirby meets with Connie Darke, an urban explorer whose sister died in an unexplained accident on the asylum grounds, his queries spur her own obsessions with the truth and she grows determined to help him find answers.

There are several questionable characters that pop up throughout the investigation, some of them tight-lipped and severe.. others wild and brash. Each one is richly portrayed, their distinctive quirks making them easy to keep track of even with a wide suspect pool.

To start with.. there's Raymond Sweet, the former resident of the asylum who ends up living on the property for decades after it closes. He's an unusual man, but he seems almost sweet in his strange way. There's the hot shot developer who ends up losing Sweets plot of land to him via squatters rights litigation, the missing urban explorer whose cell phone is found at the scene of the crime, the heir to Marsh House just in from Perth, the daughter of the deceased who is more than a little rough around the edges, and plenty of others.

Nearly everyone has secrets they're keeping, some of which are devastating and not all of them even relate to the case. In fact, while Kirby is trying to track down the killer, he's fielding calls from his parents about something his mom has been hiding. Admittedly, I found her reveal a little odd, but the story was still great.

I loved the dark, gritty setting. The description of the property throughout the book is so vividly stark. The asylum has stood on the grounds for years and it feels as if its affected almost everything within its reach.

Kane did a fantastic job of balancing character and story development with well-paced scenes filled with action or suspense. It's definitely worth the read.

PURCHASE LINKS: AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOKSAMILLION | WATERSTONES

The Bone Jar is the first book written by S W Kane, and it is a fascinating thriller. An elderly woman is found dead in an abandoned asylum, and Detective Lew Kirby has to find the killer. This book had a lot going on regarding the story and the characters, sometimes a little too much. I still thoroughly enjoyed it, though, and would definitely recommend it since the characters, the story, and the setting were all very well done. Thanks to NetGalley for the free digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

I hope to read other books by this author because this one is excellent.
It's atmospheric, a bit creepy and gripping. I loved the mix of police procedural and psychological thrilling that kept me on the edge till the end.
The setting is vivid and well described, the characters are interesting and the mystery kept me guessing.
An excellent read, highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.