Bone Song by John Meaney. An ultimately disappointing paranormal police procedural that has a world that's sadly as underutilized as its characters. It's a premise that could have had promise in the right hands - Jim Butcher and Simon R. Green have both done wonderful things with their Dresden and Nightside series respectively - unfortunately Meaney's universe is a pale connect-the-dots version of same.
You'll note that the cover and the link don't match - I paid a mere £1 for this in an overstock bookshop in the UK, and it's yet to be released in the States. I have to say I'm quite surprised to find it slated for hardcover treatment. Meaney's world based on death energy has the potential depth for a proper series, but the problem is his prose is too prosaic and brief to do it justice. Likewise, his character gets short shrift and sleepwalks from one scene to the next, a rather obvious puppet in his writer's hands. Needless to say, this isn't the way to craft a convincing mystery or character sympathy. The ending is both unsurprising and unsatisfying, and left me wanting a reread of a proper paranormal.
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