Date: July 4, 2025
Author: Tess Gerritson
Title: The Bone Garden
I gave this one better than my best college try. I made it to page 200 before throwing in the towel.
Apparently, in the early 1800’s, grave robbery was a real thing. $20 given to anyone that was brave enough to partake in such activities and not get shot in the bedlam that was possible to ensue in such endeavors. The story flips back and forth between the 19th and 21st century, though I’m not sure of the tie that binds other than maybe the 21st century ladies’ house having been built on a burial ground?
One problem associated with stealing from the grave for the purpose of science and medicine and money, in that time, and in that place, was there wasn’t enough fresh supply to meet the demands. To supplement their income when bodies were scarce these grave robbers took matters into their own hands. The plot thickens when in addition to random sailors and such that go unexplainably missing, there was another threat on Bostonian citizen’s lives that was likened to the work of the grim reaper.
I didn’t read far enough to find out where this story was leading but as I ponder what I did* read I’ve come to wonder if this may in fact be loosely based on the movie ‘Scream,’ only as a 19th century version that takes place in the mean streets of Boston and instead of kids this story features grave robbers. Do you know of which movie I speak? It made popular the cape and scary mask look back in 1996. The timeline would fit. This book was released in 2007. More than a decade later and screams of similarities.
Because I will never read another Tess Gerritson novel I wonder one last time about this work. Is Mz. Gerritson in fact a cookie-cutter-style-writer? Meaning recycling story after story with an underlying theme of unoriginality?