Bone Rattle

At the start of bestseller Cameron’s strong third crime novel featuring Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Arliss Cutter (after 2020’s Stone Cross), archaeologist Isaac Merculief, who’s overseeing the construction of a road near Juneau, Alaska, calls a halt when the work exposes a skeleton and a bone rattle, a highly valuable artifact that may have belonged to a shaman. Merculief has orders to protect any unearthed human remains or burial sites. Others oppose Merculief’s decision, and ensure that the archaeologist permanently disappears. Eventually, the circumstances of Merculief’s disappearance come to Cutter’s attention, but the lawman has a lot of other things on his plate, including the mystery of a woman’s torso that washed ashore near Anchorage, the trial of two vicious drug traffickers, and the assassination of a federal official. Cameron draws on his own service as a deputy federal marshal in Alaska and his expertise in tracking down people, and he does a good job balancing the multiple plotlines as well as characterization and action. Owen Laukkanen fans will be pleased. Agent: Robin Rue, Writers House. (Apr.)