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Valley of Bones | 
| Author: Michael Gruber
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $10.97
You Save: $13.98 (56%)
New (4) Used (4) from $7.94
Avg. Customer Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 712036
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 5.8 x 1.5
ISBN: 1427944202
EAN: 9781427944207
ASIN: B000BHA3VS
Publication Date: January 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: New, great condition
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Amazon.com
This top-notch novel confirms Gruber's place as a gifted writer who stretches the conventional bounds of the genre by placing the mysteries of faith and religious experience and the complexities of the human mind as well as spirit at the center of his work. It's a taut, compelling whodunit that's as far from a typical detective procedural as good is from evil and a worthy follow-up to his acclaimed debut (Tropic of Night) that also features Cuban-American cop Jimmy Paz. Here Gruber tells a mesmerizing tale of Emmylou Dideroff, who communes with saints and whose checkered past includes stints as a hooker, drug dealer, and the leader of a band of Sudanese freedom fighters. But did she kill the Arab businessman on a government "watch list" who plunged to his death from a Miami hotel? While that's the incident that brings her to Paz's attention, it's only one of his questions about this strange woman, whose unsettling "confessions" stir up the detective's confusion about his own deepest beliefs. Emmylou is as fascinating and fully realized as Jane Doe, the memorable protagonist of Gruber's first book--so too is Lorna Wise, the psychologist brought in to assess Emmylou's sanity, whose personal and professional lives are turned totally upside down by her involvement in the case and her relationship with Paz. This is a smart, riveting, wholly original and thoroughly fascinating book that's impossible to put down and leaves the reader with only one question--when is this author's next one coming out? --Jane Adams
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"The startling reviews of Tropic of Night announced Michael Gruber as one of the most talented thriller writers to debut in many years. Now, with the much-anticipated publication of Valley of Bones, Gruber fulfills that genre-bending promise as perhaps no writer since Graham Greene, with a genuinely exhilarating thriller that simultaneously offers a profound, deeply provocative exploration of the nature of faith itself. The setting is Miami. Rookie cop Tito Morales arrives at the Trianon Hotel to investigate a routine disturbance call -- and, to his shock and horror, watches as a wealthy oilman plunges ten stories and impales himself on a nearby fence. Soon Morales is joined by detective Jimmy Paz, famous throughout the city for solving -- or at least providing a plausible solution to -- the so-called Voodoo Murders that left Miami burning months earlier. Together Paz and Morales enter the hotel and discover, in the dead man's room, a most unusual suspect, an otherworldly woman by the name of Emmylou Dideroff. She emerges from a rapturous, prayerlike state and admits that she had a motive for killing the oilman. Ultimately, she says she wants to confess, and asks for a pen and several notebooks in which to convey the details of her confession. What Emmylou writes is nothing like what Paz expects; he enlists psychologist Lorna Wise in an effort to make sense of things that go beyond Emmylou's explanation of the murder: details of childhood abuse, of other crimes committed, of regular communion with saints -- and with the devil. Is she mentally disturbed or playacting in hopes of getting declared unfit for trial? Or does she really believe herself to be an instrument of God? And why is it that so many people -- including Paz's biological father -- are suddenly interested in the contents of these notebooks and in preventing them from becoming public? As Valley of Bones moves toward its startling and dramatic finale, Emmylou's ""confessions"" lead Jimmy Paz, Lorna Wise, and Tito Morales down a series of unexpected and dangerous turns that puts them in the path of perhaps the most terrifying evil imaginable and forces each of them to confront questions about faith, love, and the possibility of the miraculous. "
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| Customer Reviews: Read 20 more reviews...
 There Were Some Flaws June 8, 2008
I thought Tropic of Night was brilliant which is why I was surprised that in this book Gruber's portrayal of Santeria did not completely jibe with what I have learned about it.
Another problem is that I lost interest in the African section of Emmy Lou's memoirs. It was less dramatic than it could have been. Emmy Lou herself was fascinating, but her memoirs weren't always all that compelling.
This novel's concept had potential and it had great character ingredients, but Gruber fell a bit short on the implementation.
 And this is why they call it "genre writing"... May 18, 2008
Books like this are why it's called "genre writing." _Valley of Bones_ falls (not to say sinks) into the category of "beach reading" (provided it's a really nice beach and you're in an especially distracted mood) or what it's perhaps more accurate to call "potato chip reading": the pages go down like potato chips, but no individual chip requires your attention. There's only one reason to write like this: money. Before anyone gets his knickers in a wad, let's be clear: I'm very happy if writers make money. But I also think it's fair to say, if the most impassioned defense one can bring to bear on a book is that it makes money, that there's at least the possibility the writer doesn't love you nearly as much as his publicist would like you to believe he does. I certainly don't think it's an easy task to sustain invention, even at the dilute level of _Valley of Bones_, for 400+ pages, but books like this make me wonder one thing: Why not try to write better? _Valley of Bones_ contains a fine collection of sentences goony enough for the Bulwer-Lytton contest, not a few of which are simply incomprehensible. And if you can't write better, how come Harper doesn't give you a real editor? Could it be that your publisher, too, is more interested in rolling out a product than in writing as a (dare I say it?) profession? The problem here isn't--or isn't solely--the writer's devices (such as a long, intermittently interesting journal that may or may not contain information that may or may not explain the plot of the novel) or characterization; the problem is that the elements of the story are handled by someone who suggests he isn't all that interested (Gruber's technique for characterization, just to focus on that, is to provide his characters with a series of psychological tics and catch-phrases which they dutifully trot out whenever they appear; he doesn't actually believe in character development). I don't think I'll be spoiling much if I say the title of the book has absolutely nothing to do with the story or that, in the end, Gruber makes only a feint at resolving the book's central mystery. It's not amateurish; these days, sadly, it's entirely professional. What it is, is distracted, lowest-common-demoninator writing (and editing) that demonstrates a major preoccupation with buyers and only a minimal interest in readers.
Well Done, Indeed! February 9, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
A man is thrown to his death from a high-rise. Cops rush to the scene and find a woman in his apartment. She is arrested for murderer, but claims to be possessed by a demon that makes her do things she can't always remember. Nice blend of horror and mystery and worth reading.
 One of the best "thrillers" I have read January 21, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
A complex and intriguing story, written with such intimacy I felt that I knew the heroine personally. Outstanding!
a superior writer January 12, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Michael Gruber is a superior writer of mysteries which border interestingly and believably on the magical/supernatural. His detective Jimmy Paez is a Cuban who is or was a detective with the Miami PD, a man of superior intuition who is conflicted between his western rationality and something more mysterious and vaster in scope. Night of the Jaguar and Tropic of Night deal interestingly with Siberian shamanism, Yoruba magic, Amazon indian shamanism, and Santeria. Valley of Bones deals with an extreme sect of Catholic nuns consecrated to nursing on battle lines. He acknowledges and delves into matters not as "ignorant superstitions" but as valid worldviews with their own particular power. He is well worth getting acquainted with.
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