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Zusatztext 87203220 Informationen zum Autor William Ritter began writing the Jackaby series in the middle of the night when his son was still an infant. After getting up to care for him, Will would lie awake, his mind creating rich worlds and fantasies--such as the one in New Fiddleham. Will lives and teaches in Springfield, Oregon. Beastly Bones is his second novel. Klappentext “Some girls work in shops or sell flowers. Some girls find husbands and play house. I assist a mad detective in investigating unexplained phenomena. My name is Abigail Rook, and this is what I do.” “Recommend this to readers who enjoy Doctor Who, Supernatural, Grimm, the Dresden Files, Harry Potter, and, of course, Sherlock Holmes stories, and who are ready to stay up into the wee hours reading.” —VOYA, starred review “Fast-paced . . . As bones go missing, methodical investigation and scientific experimentation yield to madcap chases, slapstick humor, and romance.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review Chapter One “Follow my lead, Miss Rook,” Jackaby said, rapping on the ornately trimmed door to 1206 Campbell Street. Were my employer a standard private investigator, those might have been simple instructions, but in the time I’ve been his assistant, I’ve found very little about Jackaby to be standard. Following his lead tends to call for a somewhat flexible relationship with reality. Tall and lanky, Jackaby swam in his long, brown coat. It looked like it might have once been an expensive garment, but it was now battered and affixed inside and out with myriad clinking, jingling pockets and pouches, each loaded with trinkets and tools he insisted were essential to his work. Around his neck he had wound a ludicrously long scarf, the ends of which brushed the cobblestones as he walked. On his head, stuffed over a dark mess of wild hair, was the main offender. Jackaby’s cap, the knit monstrosity, was a patternless composite of uneven stitches and colors. The threads clashed with his scarf. They clashed with his coat. They even clashed with one another. Alone on a hat rack, the thing would have looked mismatched. Jackaby was not an ugly man. He kept himself clean-shaven, and always seemed to smell of cloves and cinnamon. In a fine suit and tie he might have been downright attractive to the right sort of girl, but in his preferred garb he looked, by all accounts, like an eccentric lunatic. He was fond of reminding me that “appearances aren’t everything,” but I dare say they aren’t nothing, either. My employer can be single-minded about some things. Most things, in fact. The woman who answered the door appeared far too overwhelmed by her own concerns to bother about silly hats, anyway. Jackaby and I soon found ourselves ushered past the threshold and into an elegantly furnished sitting room. The house looked like so many of the regal English manors to which my mother had dragged me as a child. My father was a bit of an explorer—you may have read about the intrepid Daniel Rook—but my mother much preferred tradition and civility. Mother took full advantage of my father’s notoriety to find her way into countless London garden parties, and she brought me along in the hopes that a little exposure would make me wish to be a proper lady as well. It generally made me wish instead that I could go outside and play in the dirt, like my father. In some ways, there was really nothing new about New England. Our current hostess looked as though she would have fit very comfortably into my mother’s social circles. She introduced herself as Florence Beaumont and offered to take our coats. Jackaby flatly declined for both of us. I would have preferred he hadn’t, as the heat of the chamber was a sharp contrast to the breeze outside. The spring of 1892 had arrived in New Fiddleham, but it had not yet fully chased away the last of the winter winds. Mrs....
