'Valley of Bones' Revisits Santeria-Afflicted Detective Jimmy Paz

Review of VALLEY OF BONES (Audio Editions 2005)
By guest blogger Star Lawrence
Author, Michael Gruber; read by Nick Sullivan

You are talking with a rawboned Florida woman found in a Miami hotel room where an Arab has just been thrown out of a window and her face changes for a split second, her blue eyes turning black, then back to normal. Did you see that—or not?

If you're Jimmy Paz, a devil-make-care (my stars, what an expression) detective, whose restaurateur mother is regularly "ridden" by Santeria "saints" and who tangled with a hideous witch doctor in TROPIC OF NIGHT, you know this might not be good.

Turns out Emmylou has a checkered background, starting with child abuse and murder and ending running a backwater war over Sudanese oil in her capacity as a nun. The woman had such a boring life, it's a wonder it made it to a book. But it does—in the form of four confessional notebooks she writes out for Paz to keep the devil from making her blurt out wrong information. Yes, he will do that.

Taking the notebooks from Emmylou one-by-one is her therapist, Lorna, a focused woman who is a hypochondriac and can't bear to wear a bathing suit because she is convinced she is fat. But Paz likes what he sees anyway and flirtation leads to more flirtation. Will Paz give up his University of Girls, the institution that seems to flourish between sheets, but which he credits for teaching him all the beguiling poetry he seems to know?

Lorna is not big on the University of Girls, but she is also busy trying to stay alive as "The G," various mercenaries, a rich order of nuns, a former police partner of Paz's who has found the Lord, a schizzy homeless person, and various other folks scamper around at the devil's behest. Or is it God's idea, all this? Emmylou thinks so.

How does it end? You know how to find out. But you may not look people in the eye for a while. You wouldn't want to see anything weird, would you? And then not see it?

Star Lawrence is a writer in Chandler, AZ, and can be reached at jkellaw@aol.com. She's a frequent contributor to The Book Grrl and authors the blog Do the Hopey Copey, a humorous how-to guide to handling the recession.