I'm not sure how I started reading "book 2 in the Gin Palace trilogy" which was clearly added as a subtitle, but it wasn't until about a third of the way through when I realized the book was referring to things of which I knew nothing, but it assumed I was fully aware. By that time I was already in the midst of the action so I just kept on reading. In hindsight, what I missed in book one didn't make too much difference.
For me, reading The Bone Orchard was like reading a James Bond script, heavy on action, light on substance. This is very much crime fiction noir with the cynical and unlikeable characters and the dark and seedy backdrop. The main character, "Mac" joins up with the small town's heavy in an effort to get his friend out of trouble. Just as in all Bond movies, you know from the start how it ends, which eliminates the suspense and the mystery. And just as in all Bond movies there are run-ins and fights galore. This book lives up to that as well. The bigger problem for me was that each fight was literally reading a blow-by-blow that went on for pages, which made this more like a movie script than a novel.
If you're a Raymond Chandler fan and enjoy hard boiled crime you would probably like this series and you might like to start with book 1.
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