The Whispering of Bones

by Judith Rock

Overview

“Rich with telling detail and a deep feeling for time and place,”* Judith Rock's historical mysteries are "a great mix of mystery, excitement and intrigue...a truly excellent series.”**

Paris, 1687.
The last thing Jesuit Charles du Luc and his elderly confessor expect to find in an ancient crypt is a newly murdered body. Even more troubling, the shock of discovering the victim—a young man about to enter their order—proves too much for Charles’s companion. Vowing justice, Charles wants nothing more than to discover the killer, but is unexpectedly restrained from investigation.

At the same moment, a fellow soldier has also entered the Jesuit Novice House, bringing Charles’s worst battlefield secret back to haunt him. And when another Jesuit disappears from the college of Louis le Grand and Charles himself is attacked, he begins to wonder whether there might be something more sinister afoot. All signs point to someone targeting Jesuits—and not even an ex-soldier like Charles may be able to escape...

READERS GUIDE INSIDE

*Margaret Frazer, national bestselling author of The Apostate’s Tale
**The Big Thrill

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425253663
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/05/2013
Series:	A Charles du Luc Novel , #4
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.26(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.91(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

For many years a modern dancer and choreographer, Judith Rock founded Body and Soul Dance Company in Berkeley, California, toured extensively as a solo concert dancer, and studied baroque dance. Research for her Ph.D. in art and theology took her to Paris, where she lived at the nearby Jesuit Cultural Center and researched the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century ballets produced at the Paris Jesuit College of Louis le Grand.

In a startling leap, Rock then spent several years as a police officer before taking that experience back to the stage as a playwright and actress. She was an auxiliary officer in the NYPD and later a part-time police officer in Minnesota, working midnight shifts.

Rock has written on dance, art, and theology for many journals, and has been artist-in-residence and taught and lectured at colleges, seminaries, and conferences across the United States and abroad. After years in New York, she and her husband now live in Sarasota, Florida.  The Rhetoric of Death, her first novel, was a 2011 Barry Award nominee.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Praise for the Charles du Luc novels

“Powerful, absorbing, complex, and thoroughly satisfying."—Historical Novels Review (Editor's Choice)

"Energetic and engrossing.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A necessary read for all who enjoy historical mysteries.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“Rich with telling detail and a deep feeling for time and place.”—Margaret Frazer, national bestselling author of The Apostate’s Tale

“A great mix of mystery, excitement and intrigue...a truly excellent series.”—The Big Thrill

“Rock nails everything about characters, dialogue, setting, historical research, pacing and story development. … an excellent historical detective series.” —Bookgasm
 
“Not only satisfies the taste of historical mystery lovers but anyone who likes complex plots, twists, and elaborate mysteries. … Judith Rock’s research is as impeccable as her writing style. … a great read.” —Mystery Tribune

“Amazing ... Ms. Rock takes you back to fascinating and dangerous 17th century Paris so well that I suspect her of being a time-traveler who's been there.”—Ariana Franklin, National bestselling author of Mistress of the Art of Death
 

Editorial Reviews

09/23/2013
Rock delivers another polished performance in her fourth Charles de Luc mystery set in late-17th-century Paris (after 2012’s A Plague of Lies). When priest-in-training Charles and his confessor, Père Dainville, leave their Jesuit community to pray in a nearby church, the discovery of a murdered man hidden in the church’s crypt causes the elderly Dainville to suffer a fatal stroke. The victim is identified as a young man who had planned to enter the Jesuit novitiate; soon, Charles himself is attacked, another member of the order disappears, and scurrilous propaganda about the Jesuits begins to circulate. Charles’s desire to protect his community meets opposition from superiors uncomfortable with the unseemly visibility of his previous murder investigations, while his inner life is thrown into turmoil by painful reminders of his past as a soldier. Scrupulous historical research, psychological nuance, and colorful period depictions enrich this solidly plotted tale. Agent: Damaris Rowland, Damaris Rowland Agency. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for the Charles du Luc novels

“Powerful, absorbing, complex, and thoroughly satisfying."—Historical Novels Review (Editor's Choice)

"Energetic and engrossing.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A necessary read for all who enjoy historical mysteries.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“Rich with telling detail and a deep feeling for time and place.”—Margaret Frazer, national bestselling author of The Apostate’s Tale

“A great mix of mystery, excitement and intrigue...a truly excellent series.”—The Big Thrill

“Rock nails everything about characters, dialogue, setting, historical research, pacing and story development. … an excellent historical detective series.” —Bookgasm
 
“Not only satisfies the taste of historical mystery lovers but anyone who likes complex plots, twists, and elaborate mysteries. … Judith Rock’s research is as impeccable as her writing style. … a great read.” —Mystery Tribune

“Amazing ... Ms. Rock takes you back to fascinating and dangerous 17th century Paris so well that I suspect her of being a time-traveler who's been there.”—Ariana Franklin, National bestselling author of Mistress of the Art of Death
 

From the Publisher

2013-10-20
A former soldier–turned–Jesuit scholar solves a series of mysteries during the reign of Louis XIV. When Maître Charles du Luc and his confessor, Père Auguste Dainville, make a pilgrimage in late 1687 to the crypt of a Carmelite church in Paris, the shock of finding a young man's body in the well chamber gives the aged Dainville a fatal stroke. Charles, a proud scion of the minor nobility, wants justice for Dainville, his mentor on the difficult road to priesthood. Then, Charles' resentful cousin, who fought with him in the Battle of Cassel, intrudes on his theological studies and reveals that another veteran of Cassel, Amaury de Corbet, has also embraced the Society of Jesus. Charles suspects that his former comrade in arms is trying to assuage his guilt rather than following a true vocation. While dealing with issues of religious life, Charles also helps the chief of police find the murderer of the young man in the crypt. A contraband book, a political conspiracy, a woman with a questionable connection to Amaury, the disappearance of two of Charles' fellow scholars and a goatherd/seer lead to a giddy dénouement strangely at odds with an otherwise leisurely, sometimes-pedantic tale. Rock (A Plague of Lies, 2012, etc.) has painstakingly recreated 17th-century Paris, although with a decidedly modern emphasis on guilt as a prime motivator. A strong, sympathetic protagonist, however, atones for both the author's lapses and his own in this latest case file of an aspiring priest.

Kirkus Reviews