Too Dark to Finish
I picked up The Bones at Point No Point by D.D Black during my most recent Goodwill book hunt because I read fairly positive reviews on Goodreads. I blind-bought a few other of his books while I was there since I’ve been on a horror fiction kick and they seemed right up my alley.
Bones at Point No Point wound up being more of a formulaic true crime story, but with utterly gruesome subject matter. And when I say gruesome, I mean truly vile and dark shit. The plot centers around a serial killer who kidnaps weeks-old babies, pretends to be their parent for a few days, and then proceeds to drug the infants and boil them until all that remains is there bones. They then etch holiday-themed poems into the baby’s bones and leave the stripped bones in a holiday-themed bag somewhere public enough where an unsuspecting bystander will come across them.
I used to have the fortitude to stomach pretty dark subject matter, but that grit has dimmed as I’ve crossed the path into my 40s. Though I suspect even at my staunchest, the subject matter of this book would have rubbed me the wrong way. It’s just not fun. In fact, it’s frankly nauseating.
It doesn’t help that the characters are true crime paper cutouts, and the main protagonist acts like a widow in his 70s, rather than a man who just left his 30s. He can’t help but tell everyone he meets how bad he is with technology. As a recently retired NYPD detective, he absolutely would have had experience with technology and social media. So there are some truly frustrating holes in the tale besides the disgusting plot.
10 years ago, I might have gotten further into the book, but as I age and the time crunch becomes ever more apparent with every passing day, I’ve become more sensitive and definitely more selective of what I read. 60 pages were enough for me here.