Them Bones is the 22nd standalone mystery adventure featuring "Mac" McKenzie written by David Housewright. Released 24th June 2025 by Macmillan on their St. Martin's / Minotaur imprint, it's 320 pages and is available in hardcover and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links.
This is a very well written deeply researched PI/fixer novel featuring a strong, moderately irascible, intelligent, and dogged former police detective who is now retired and taking on cases on a private basis. The first quarter of the novel features a *lot* of in-depth background and setup, mostly concerned with paleontology, fieldwork, and (to a moderate degree) the hierarchy of field science and archaeological digs. For readers who stick with it through the necessary background, the rest of the book does move along at a good clip. The characters are well rendered and three dimensional. Dialogue and plotting are also well done and never clunky, without major issues. In some ways, the lone PI/fixer elements are a little reminiscent of McDonald's McGee novels (without the screaming sexism), or Parker's Spenser.
Although it's the 22nd book in the series, it works perfectly well as a standalone, with the codicil that some spoilers in background and character development will occur if read out of order.
Four stars. This would be a great choice for public library acquisition, home library, or as a binge/buddy read with a pick-n-choose series; not necessary to follow the series in order (though they're all generally well written and highly readable).
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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