A Whisper of Bones

Restaurateur and part-time private investigator Jane Lawless is asked by a visiting professor, Britt Ickles, to find her missing cousin. While in town Britt visits her mother's two sisters who she hadn't seen for 40 years. In A Whisper of Bones by Ellen Hart, Jane is drawn into the investigation.

Britt explains she recalls a cousin the same age as herself, but when she asks her aunts about Timmy, they said they don't know what she is talking about.  When she goes back to visit them, she finds a drawing Timmy had made and hidden in a crack in the wall and baseboard. What has become of him and why do the aunts deny his existence?

As Jane investigates she decides to rent a room in the aunts' house to get closer to them. When a fire breaks out in the family's garage and bones are discovered in the ashes. Britt is convinced her cousin is dead.

But it turns out not to be her cousin and that stumps Jane
and Britt. It's becoming obvious that the sisters are hiding something, but what is it? When another

person dies, Jane begins to wonder about the young next door neighbor who has been very friendly to the wheelchair-bound aunt.

Complicating Jane's life is the reappearance of her former lover Julia, now terminally ill and wanting to return for whatever time she has left with Jane. Despite her friend Cordelia's advice not to let her stay, Jane does.

A Whisper of Bones is an excellent book with a fascinating plot and subplot. I very much enjoyed it.