The Bone Readers by Jacob Ross summary

The Bone Readers by Jacob Ross summary

The story is about a young man called Michael ‘Digger’ Digson who witnessed a murder of a young on the streets of San Andrews of Camaho (Caribbean Island) after being fired from his hotel job. He’s taken to the Central Police Station to give his statement on what happened at the beach. That’s when Chilman saw something in him because of the way he described what he saw and went to his house to offer him a job. At first, he refused the job because of his family history, so Chilman stopped from going to San Andrews by threating him with loitering charges. But at the end, he had to so he could rebuild his grandmother house and eat.

After that he is recruited into a special homicide squad, an out of ordinary group composed of DC Malan, Maureen (Chilmann’s Secretary), Lisa and Pet led by the enigmatic DS “Detective Superintendent” Chilman.

Digger becomes emmeshed in Chilman’s obsession with a cold case, the disappearance of a young man called Nathan, a nineteen-year-old boy. His mother went to the office several times, years ago and reported him missing. She was sure that he hadn’t left the island, for matter of the fact she knew that something bad had happened to him. But there was no proof so the police couldn’t pursue the case. The mother told that her son left the house on a sunny Saturday afternoon and never came back

But Digger has a murder to pursue too: that of his mother Lorna Digson killed in May 1999 during the Rape Riot by a renegade police squad when he was a boy.

The last time he saw his mother was when he was eight years old, she was in the yard of their house in a yellow t-shirt and dark-blue jeans and a white bandanna on her head. She got on a car and promised him that she would be home a little later. His grandmother gave him no explanation for his mother disappearance, he found out later that she went to a demonstration: a schoolgirl in Canteen was raped by several men on her way home from a revision class in her school. What they did to her after was what enraged the women, they not only killed her but filled her with bits of wood and dirty in every orifice of her body. And they left her splayed out in a field in Canteen. When it made the news, the leader of the rape, son of a politician had already been smuggled out of the island to America. The women took the streets to protest but the police arrived with guns and started shooting people. He blames is father for that because the only person who could give such an order was his father, Joseph Lohar the Police Commissioner. He was a bastard son; his mother was a servant at his dad’s house.

After that his grandmother, a Fire Baptist became the shell of a women. She died in her sleep. She left him messages and he was able to differentiate them by the color:

• Yellow: for the things that would matter in the future like a will for the house and a piece of land somewhere in the South of Camaho
• She left eight silver bracelets for his future daughter
• A clay jar with a wad of notes, five gold bracelets and a couple of fine linked chains as also a blue fragment cloth – things that he could sell in desperation

His first case, eleven weeks, and two days after being on the job was to pick up a man called Travis a.k.a Dog Ears, a rapist.

At the same time, he was investigating his mother case, he went to the police archives, a building in Fort Rupert. He didn’t find anything in the archives but later he figured it out what Chilman meant by “look where your mother is looking” and he knew that it was the weapons. And he knew that an armorer keeps an inventory of the officers to whom weapons were given and the records of their return.

He realized that Chilman and him had two things in common, both were obsessed with a case and they both found a way to suppress that obsession. Chilman drinks a lot and Digger reads a lot, to feel the void. He found out the word that described what happened to his mother, democide: the willful murder of a person or persons by a greater power than themselves. In this case, the hand that wielded that power was commissioner who according to him gave the order.

He went to The Dims, a part of San Andrews where the armory was located. He found the files dated of May 3rd, 1999 at 10:47 am, twenty-eight rifles and twelve revolvers were given by BH. The name of the armorer was Buckman Hurd aka Boko. He went to see Cornwall, who is the same age as Chilman to ask him if he knows Boko and could tell him where he lives but he told him to talk with is boss.

Two and a half years had passed and Chilman decided to send him to England, School of Forensics for one year of intensive immersion and Malan to America to learn everything about guns. And that he would give is resign letter once they came back. Malan is going to run the office while Digson is going to have its own department at the disposal of all the regional forces of the island. Digson used to stay in a flat in Peckham Road.  

Chilman passed Nathan’s case to him when he returned from England. He found the file in his desk addressed to his name. He tried to file it away and dodge Chilman’s calls but one day he found the old man at this desk. Two months later after this visit, Miss K. Stanislaus was sent by Mister Chilman to help in the Nathan case and at the same time he received a call from him telling Digson to get him in like Chilman got him in the force. Malan was enraged by it because Chilman had no power in the force and took it out on Miss Stanislaus. But least he knew that Miss Stanislaus was not the type be submissive so she answer back by pointing out facts such as that he is a cheater (despite being a married man, he would catcall every women and takes his wedding ring when he gets out of the house), he has a mistress who is a young girl and then she attacked his ego by saying if she founds what happened to Nathan before him what that will make him look like to the population. According to Miss Stanislaus, Malan is the typical “Camaho man”.

The next day, the Commissioner called and had Miss Stanislaus recruited into the team, she is the last recruit. Together, they went to Nathan’s mother house, there Digson find out that Nathan was a very clean person, his room smelled different from the rest of the house: slightly perfumed. He was very interested in his own appearance and never left home without his leather satchel, a gift from Simday. According to Digson analyzation, Nathan was also an ambitious man and preferred to be white (because of the skin-toning cream and skin-bleach soap) perhaps he thought that he was born in the wrong place. Nathan and Ioana were a part of the Fire Baptist Church also named The Children of the Unicorn Spiritual Baptist Church, composed of Deacons and Mothers and Teachers; Shepherds and Nurses and Captains; Surveyors and Healers and Watchmen by hierarchy order.

Digson knew everything about it because his grandmother was a part of the Church, she was a Prover: “a discerner of the truth, a decipherer of souls”. This meant she was the one who ruled out false believes from the true one’s. Nathan was a Pointer: he shepherd the Mourners on the Morning Ground (is a form of cleansing: a person lye on the ground with a stone as a pillow) and is job was to look after them because they stayed there between seven to twenty-one days without food, is what we call fasting.
The Church also had other types of services like the Candle, Flower and Pilgrimage service. The church was in Pwin. The women always wear red, blue, and yellow scarves and white dresses. 

They found a young man’s body in Easterhall which they believed it was Nathan in the house of Simday and arrested the man. He admitted to everything besides the murderer. Miss Stanislaus infiltrated the Church to get inside information that could lead to or shed light into Nathan’s murderer. 

Miss Stanislaus is so good at reading people that she found out that Digson was having girls problems and she counseled him to choose the one that gave him the most headaches because she’ll make him into a better person. Here the author is referring to Dessie but also to Lonnie whom he met on the road during his first case: they found the body of an Indian girl floating in the river with her belongings. His friend Caran was on the case with him. They found out that his father killed because she was talking to a “blackfella”. The girl’s name was Leyla.

At first Lonnie was playing the hard to get but with time they went out, mostly do to the fact that Digson went to that road every day for two weeks. He found out that Malan and she had a thing.

Digger continued to pursue his own agenda, he called all the fourteen former officers that used to work with Boko Hurd to know about his whereabouts: one was living with his daughter in Florida, another moved to Trinidad, five had passed away, the next three didn’t answered his questions but attacked him instead just like Cornwall. But one was fine with meeting him, Pablo John. Pablo has hearing problems since he was hit with a Cricket Ball and during The Rape Riot, he wasn’t present. He found out that Boko was one of the thirty man from different parishes who answered only to the man who believed he owned the island those days. Boko used to boast about how protected he was, he was on somebody payroll. And that the command didn’t come from the Commissioner because the day after every cop in the island was looking for answers. Boko also boasted how he got to shoot somebody during that Riot, he seemed proud of himself. Even after somebody tried to kill him (a truck run straight at him in front San Andrews Station: got out with a bad left leg). One thing that John remembers about Boko boast was the word chalk.