Bones to Pick
Bones to Pick, finds Calgary television photographer Phoebe Fairfax at Alberta’s Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology taping the black-tie opening of a display of important hominid fossils discovered on a recent African dig by world-renowned paleoanthropologist Graham Maxwell. Thanks to his inflated ego and dubious honesty, Maxwell has made many enemies over the forty years since his graduation from the University of Alberta. When Phoebe discovers the famous scientist dead, his skull bashed in by a fossil dinosaur egg and his priceless fossils missing, there is no shortage of suspects, some with grudges nurtured over forty years.
Embroiled with Phoebe in this murderous comedy are an elderly professor who spends his summers living an experiment in “de-evolving”; Maxwell’s assistant who for years has played second fiddle to a man he considers second-rate; Maxwell’s young, love-struck intern, the latest in a long series, who realizes she is soon to pass her “best-before” date; and a retired oil geologist now heading an anti-evolution protest group, the Geologists For Jesus.
As much social comedy as mystery, Bones to Pick plays out its tale of past sins and present murder against the stark beauty of the Alberta badlands.
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Reviews
“Mystery writing in Canada has a growing list of class-act practitioners who can easily hold their own with high-profile international stars of the genre. Suzanne North, a smooth, clever and confident writer, needs to be better known as one of the best.”
– Free Press, London.
“Darwin’s theories get a workout like never before in this tale of ambition, greed, God, and good old-fashioned lust. Phoebe fans won’t be disappointed.”
– StarPhoenix, Saskatoon.
“The whole affair is madcap and makes an excellent use of Drumheller’s exotic locale, both in and out of the museum . . . readers will love Bones To Pick.”
– Calgary Herald.
“We in the profession owe Suzanne North thanks for bringing geology and geologists into the public eye in this suspenseful, provocative, outrageously funny novel.”
– Geolog, a publication of the Geological Association of Canada.