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On a ranch just outside of Moab, Utah, in a secret cellar under a barn, sculptor Ashley Stassler is working on his latest masterpiece. Although the finished project will be cast in metal, at this stage he is still sculpting flesh. From the beginning of Mark Nykanen's latest thriller, THE BONE PARADE, the reader knows the artist is, above all else, a serial killer.
But artist and professor Lauren Reed has no idea. She is not a fan of Stassler's work; in fact, it disturbs her. Still, she sends her most promising young student, Kerry, to intern with Stassler on his remote ranch. After all, he is a world-renowned artist, known for being eccentric at most. When Kerry disappears shortly after arriving at Stassler's, Lauren is pulled into a chilling mystery.
Over the years, in order to create his famous series "Family Planning," Stassler has collected families. After kidnapping them and locking them up in a cage in the cellar, he begins to physically and psychologically torture them before using their bodies as the structures of his sculptures. The family that will soon make up "Family Planning #9" are the Vandersons --- mother, father, son and teenage daughter. For Stassler, torturing and killing families in the name of his art has become routine. But the
daughter from this particular family, dubbed Diamond Girl by Stassler, is different. She challenges him and engages him in a dangerous psychosexual game. Soon he is facing even more complications, including the investigations of Lauren Reed, which threaten to expose him for the villainous killer he is and destroy his bone parade forever.
Nykanen's novel is not very long, but it packs a creepy punch. The reader is privy to many of Stassler's thoughts and activities. While it is interesting to be inside the mind of a literary serial killer, Nykanen never really shares how Stassler came to be a person for whom destruction of human life is necessary for the creation of his art. There is a prologue but it may confuse more than explain.
THE BONE PARADE is disturbing and original with several interesting twists. In Lauren Reed, Nykanen has created a smart and spunky heroine. She is a character driven by her instincts as an artist and as a teacher. Her instincts help her in the novel to save her own life and the life of her student.
Perhaps Nykanen's most intriguing character is Diamond Girl. A sociopath in the making, Diamond Girl is just as frightening as Stassler, maybe even more so. She too, however, is written without a clear motivation and it is hard to understand what has made her, in her short life, so wicked.
Despite the creativity of the plot, the evil of the villains, the courage of the heroine and the twist at the very end, Nykanen's novel may not satisfy readers hoping for a peek into the psyche and background of a serial killer.
Still, THE BONE PARADE is action-packed, scary and poses uncomfortable questions about the relationship between destruction and creation and what inspires an artist. Nykanen does a great job of keeping readers involved and turning pages.
--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman
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