Audiobook Review: Bone of Contention by Kristi Rose

Bone of Contention
Author: Kristi Rose
Narrator: Jennifer Stoneking
Series: A Cold Case Mystery (Book 1)
Publication: Vintage Housewife Books (November 8, 2023)
Length: 4 hours and 3 minutes

Description: From the USA Today best-selling author comes an action-packed, roller-coaster ride, new cold case mystery series that will have your pulse racing. For fans of Kendra Elliott and Debra Webb.

US Marshall Mallory Bodine’s short visit back to her central Florida hometown quickly turns into work when a skeleton is unearthed in her mom’s backyard. Mallory is caught up in the middle of a cold-case murder investigation as she searches for answers.

Four local hoodlums are a convenient fit as the killers—for the lazy, complacent sheriff, that is—but the local detective and Mallory want the truth. Was it an act of vandalism that got out of hand? Or something more sinister?

Digging through 14 years of lies won’t be easy. Murder never is.

Meet Mallory Bodine, fugitive hunter. No case has been cold for too long, and for Mallory, the dead are not forgotten.

My Thoughts: US Marshall Mallory Bodine comes home to spend a week's time off after a case goes a little awry. She doesn't get the quiet rest she was looking for because a body was found in her mother's backyard. 

The body was quickly discovered to be that of Tabby Cartwright, a young English teacher from the local high school, who had been missing since 2002. Mallory didn't know her but her younger sister Natalie had her as a math teacher and looked upon her as a mentor. 

Tabby had been having some trouble with people vandalizing her classroom since she was dating Kamil Burkhari, the son of Pakistani immigrants. In these days right after Nine Eleven, she was called a terrorist because of the man she was dating. 

Mallory agrees to help local detective and childhood friend Deputy Bo Pickett look into the crime because the local sheriff Dev Shook is too lazy and too used to looking for easy answers to do the work. He's spending time on his reelection campaign rather than doing his job. 

When they notify Tabby's parents, they find that her father has kept an extensive file about the case including reports from a private investigator he hired. He gives Mallory and Bo a copy which includes a detailed timeline. 

Since the sheriff pulls Bo off the case, Mallory is on her own to reinterview those who might have had something to do with Tabby's death. 

This was an engaging story. I enjoyed getting to know Mallory, her sister and her mother, and Bo. I liked the way the case was presented, and I liked the flashbacks from Tabby's point of view.

I bought this one from Chirp February 11, 2025. You can buy your copy here.