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"complex, multi-layered crime novel"

John Deal is trying to return his deceased father's Florida building firm, DealCo Construction to its former glory. It's a matter of pride plus he needs the money to support his estranged wife and pay his daughter's tuition fees. He travels to Key West with his friend and co-worker Russell Straight to see if they can come to terms with local developer flamboyant Franklin Stone who wants Dealco to build his latest project.

Even before the two men meet, a local hustler named Dequarious tries to tell Deal something in a local restaurant. Before he can, Dequarious is thrown out. The next time the builder sees the hustler, John tries to stop a local police officer from killing Dequarious. He succeeds but shortly thereafter, Dequarious is found by Deal shot to death in his hotel room, a wine label in his hand. John Deal is determined to find out who is behind the killing or die trying.

Les Standiford has written a complex, multi-layered crime novel that will pique and maintain reader interest from first page to last. The author is a master of characterization, populating his novel with people readers will like even though the audience knows that these individuals can operate on the wrong side of the law. BONE KEY is a mystery that is impossible to figure out until the author is ready to reveal the answers.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted March 2, 2002

On a trip to Key West to talk with a wealthy developer about a new building project, Deal stops to help a young black man who is being rousted by police on a lonely beach road. The young man is appreciative-which makes it all the more shocking two days later, when he turns up dead. What happened? The police won't say. The locals won't talk. An old girlfriend appears, but Deal can't tell if she's there to help or hinder him. References keep being made to a seventy-year-old tale of piracy and murder as if it should mean something to him. All Deal knows for sure is that the more he looks into it all, the more layers he finds, and the more people seem to have died. And that, unless he can get to the bottom of it soon, the next death just might be his own.