Nick Kolakowski really gets around, genre-wise. Although he has plenty of crime capers under his belt, with books like Payback is Forever and his Love & Bullets series, it’s his few - and excellent - horror novellas that I first became acquainted with his work, specifically Absolute Unit and, later, Beach Bodies. And let’s not forget his awesome Friday the 13th X Groundhog Day riff, appropriately titled “Goundhog Slay,” in the Monsters (Dark Tide Book 5) novella collection. Indeed, Kolakowski has found a pretty sweet spot as a crossover author in his own right, effortlessly hopping back and forth between crime and horror and mixing up the two on occasion (The Boise Long-Pig Hunting Club and its sequel, regrettably, remain unread in Mount TBR, along with Maxine Unleashes Doomsday, and I can only imagine what those books must entail based on their titles!).

With Where the Bones Lie, Kolakowski turns his attention to the old reliable of crime fiction, the private detective, albeit in a round-about way, which fits Nick’s style to a T. Dash Fuller is a former Hollywood fixer. Got a celebrity you need dried out before dying of an OD just before making the publicity rounds for a new flick or big-budget streaming series? Or maybe the celeb has already OD’d and the cause of death needs to be adjusted to something more palatable by way of favors made to the police and medical examiner? Or maybe it’s the body of a rando the celeb was hooking up with that has sadly expired and now needs to be hidden? Or, hell, maybe you just need some paparazzi kneecapped. Dash is your guy. Or was, anyway. Dash is reformed and failing at being a stand-up comedian because, funny enough, he’s not all that funny. This means, of course, he’s broke and making fast food door deliveries and Ubering folks around isn’t making ends meet. Enter his old boss, Manny, with one last job. One thing leads to another, yada yada yada, and pretty soon Dash find himself involved with Madeline Ironwood, who has hired him to find out who murdered her drug-running father, Ken. Ken’s skeleton, you see, has recently been discovered in a barrel that had been sunk in a lake, but climate changing being what it is, said lake is no more, wildfires are ravaging the landscape, and all kinds of secrets are finding their way back into the sun.

Kolakowski’s opening pages set the stage for an interesting dilemma — what happens when you’re really good at doing bad things? For Dash, it’s a personal crisis that results in stomach cramps best relieved by punishing amounts of alcohol and snark because he is, after all, a not-quite private eye of the hard-boiled tradition, and because healthy coping mechanisms make for poor drama. Both Dash and Madeline make light of the fact that finding out what happened to Ken is cheaper than therapy, but there’s an unmissable truth in such jokes. Both have long-standing, albeit wildly different, issues in need of resolution. For Dash these are brought to the forefront as Manny reenters his life and dredges up a past that Dash finds impossible to escape, and which has literally crippled him with guilt. During the course of his investigation into Ken’s disappearance he suffers a panic attack. His dreams are waking nightmares that make for fitful sleep. He sees a black-clad figure in a skull mask stalking him wherever he goes, a figure that may or may not actually be there.

Dash makes for an interesting character study. He’s impulsive and self-assured in his skills, but so riddled with doubt and guilt that he can’t keep doing all the things he’s so good at. His talents have made his existence a living hell. But it’s not until Madeline enters the picture that he finds a pathway into do-goodery. Former footnote of an actress Madeline makes for an equally intriguing foil, and it’s clear Kolakowski had a lot of fun writing these two. She’s a wildcat, and there’s a natural charm to the repartee between her and Dash. It’s refreshing, too, to see their relationship founded on mutual respect and professionalism, rather than the typical ‘will they or won’t they’ tropes often found in similar set-ups.

Where the Bones Lie subverts just enough of the usual expectations that it feels fresh and enjoyable, and Kolakowski puts a unique spin on the private dick character with his focus on mental health and finding balance in a truly off-kilter world. With shades of Robert Crais’s Elvis Cole novels by way of Jordan Harper’s outstanding Everybody Knows, Kolakowski delivers an intriguing PI page-turner that reminds us just how dark sunny California can get.

A quirky and twisting Hollywood set mystery! I read an eARC of this book on NetGalley so thank you to the author and publisher.

I love a book set in Hollywood. Most of this actually takes place out of Hollywood itself and more in wine country, but even so Hollywood is pretty integral to this story. We have missing movie stars and a fixer. Our MC is a fixer who ends up on a mysterious mission to help a woman investigate the death of her father. This has them following clues, receiving threatening warnings to stop investigating, encountering nefarious characters. I actually really enjoyed the forays outside of Hollywood and the way the investigation took place in wine country and how that was woven into the story and the clues they found.

Our main character was pretty cool, a fixer was an interesting concept as an investigating character. I really liked the gently friendly relationship with his client too. There was a comfort between them that worked really well for building trust as they delved deeper into their investigation.

Overall an intriguing mystery, great setting with an unexpected ending.

A story for those readers like a twisting mystery with some deathly dark humour. I didn’t see the ending coming. Dash McClane used to be an LA fixer, not the tradesman kind. But one too many problems solved sees him trying something else. Stand-up comedy. This may be a way to feel better about himself, but his jokes are an acquired taste and not necessarily appreciated. Neither is the trouble he finds himself in when he reluctantly agrees to step back into his old life’s shoes and accept Madeline’s request to help her find out what happened to her dad. He’s been found dead in a barrel, and she doesn’t think it’s a barrel of laughs as she’s been given the run around trying to find out what happened. Let’s hope the joke is not on them as the bodies start to mount up. Thank you to Datura and NetGalley for the ARC. The views expressed are all mine, freely given.

Set in and around LA, Nick Kolakowski's Where the Bones Lie drips with Hollywood glamour and grit. From the green Mustang (which I can’t stop thinking about!) to Dash McClane, the bad-boy-turned-good-ish protagonist, to speed-loving Madeline Ironwood, and a colorful array of villains who excel at betrayal and deceit, this book feels like a Hollywood blockbuster on paper.

Some stories are so vividly written they practically beg to be made into movies. Nick Kolakowski’s Where the Bones Lie is one of them. This was my first book by this author, but it certainly won’t be my last. From compelling characters to a gripping plot and masterful storytelling, Kolakowski’s talent shines in every element of Where the Bones Lie.

If you are looking for a high-stake and high-chase thriller that is as good as a Hollywood blockbuster, you HAVE to read Nick Kolakowski's Where the Bones Lie.

Top Notch from Nick. Been a fan of his for years. He is a master at writing crime stories.
Definitely recommend this book.
Check it out.

Thanks to Datura Books for the ARC.

I have read some Kolakowski books before and they're always smart and funny. This sounded like a bit of a shift in direction, and by the description I thought it would veer into similar territory as Jordan Harper's brilliant book Everybody Knows. A hard metric to live up to, as it is one of my faves from recent years.

However, despite some superficial similarities - the LA setting in the world of sketchy Hollywood PR fixers - it is actually a much different beast. Most of the book isn't even set in LA, but slightly north in wine country. Where the Harper book was very much channeling the freneticism of James Ellroy in its prose style, this was more akin to a classic PI novel, where the 'hero' is a reluctant and morally compromised character - not to mention quick with a pointed barb. The tone is closer to Travis McGee - funny, loose, cool.

Like all detective stories, there's a build up of clues and twists, some of which I was half expecting given the nature of the genre. This doesn't really lessen the enjoyment though. The tropes are part of the fun. I did find myself getting lost in the weeds a bit in terms of who did what somewhere in the middle, but again that is always the case with mysteries (at least for me...maybe I'm a silly billy) and it all comes together in a nice symmetrical way by the end.

Definitely recommended for fans of crime fiction and mysteries. Also sounds like the start of a very cool series.