Published by Mulholland Books on July 22, 2025
“No one knows it’s a horror story when it begins.” Set in Southern California near the Salton Sea, the horror in Salt Bones involves girls who go missing. Mal Veracruz’s sister Elena disappeared 25 years earlier, as did a girl named Noemi. The authorities decided that Elena was a runaway, but Mal doesn’t believe that. Nor did the authorities have a good history of investigating the disappearances of women with Mexican ancestries.
Now a girl named Renata is missing. Mal’s brother is a cop and at least he’s assuming Renata was a crime victim, but he hasn’t uncovered any evidence of her fate. The first third of the story sets up the disappearance of Mal’s daughter Amaranta a week later.
Griselda and Amaranta are sisters. Their mother Mal is a butcher at the carnicería. Mal’s brother Estaban (known to most as Steve) is a lawyer who works for the Callahans, the rich landowners in the Imperial Valley. Estaban is married to Sharon, a former mayor who no longer puts her law degree to any obvious use. Estaban plans to run for the Senate, but many suspect he will help the rich get richer while forgetting his roots.
Mal’s brother Benito (known to most as Benny) is a police officer and an enemy of the Callahans because of their entitlement and power. Mal raised Benny, who was all but abandoned by their mother after Elena disappeared. Mal’s mother suffers from dementia and, on bad days, blames Mal for the loss of Elena.
Griselda’s BFF is Harlan, another Callahan. She’s shagging him despite the Veracruz war with the Callahan family. Griselda and Harlan engage in environmental/animal rights protests. One night, they rescue (or steal, depending on your perspective) calves from the Callahan ranch. Amaranta accompanies Griselda on the rescue operation. It doesn’t end well for a cowboy who tries to stop them. Not long after that incident, Amaranta disappears.
A couple of theories might explain Amaranta’s disappearance. One applies to all the missing girls. A monster has taken them — a chupacabra or a supernatural beast with a human body and the head of a horse known as La Siguanaba. Mal believes she saw La Siguanaba when Elena disappeared. She has more recently glimpsed the beast and often smells its urine.
Another theory is that a human monster took the girls — perhaps a local sex offender or Gustavo Castillo, a man the valley residents suspect of killing Noemi, his daughter. Griselda worries that her environmental activism invited retaliation, but Griselda’s fear would not explain the disappearance of Renata. Mal worries that her relationship with Gustavo might be behind Amaranta’s disappearance. The reader might need a spreadsheet to keep track of suspects and motives.
Other horror elements, not necessarily related to the supernatural, pop up to add new dimensions to the story. Kids are collecting jars of blood. Loose teeth appear at regular intervals. A suspect has snakes coiled around his neck. A hidden room seems devoted to an odd sort of taxidermy. A locked room mysteriously opens. Mal has horrific visions and nightmares that might be a window to a forgotten reality.
An undercurrent of domestic drama gains force in the novel’s second half. Two characters discover the true identities of their fathers. Parents discover the sexual identities of their children. Estaban’s kids act out in spooky ways because neither he nor his wife give them the attention they crave. Mal’s hidden relationship with Gus is troubling to her kids.
A character recognizes that these are elements of a trashy telenovela (Mal’s father, as if exemplifying that observation, brandishes a cane at a man hugging his daughter and exclaims, “Get away from my daughter! El Diablo!”), but those moments integrate well with the larger plot. Slut shaming and abusive gossip are subtle themes that add weight to the story without overshadowing it. The power disparity between the rich and poor (by controlling water distribution, the wealthy are stealing from the poor) is another theme.
Part horror novel and part domestic drama, Salt Bones is a thriller in full. The story moves at a relentless pace. It generates excitement and ends in a flurry of credible action. Nearly every character is a plausible suspect in at least one disappearance, making the mystery difficult to solve. The link between the disappearance of Mal’s sister a quarter century earlier and the recent disappearances of her daughter and Renata is also plausible, if a bit unlikely. While it’s not a spoiler to assure the reader that La Siguanaba is not a suspect, the novel will end with characters sharing a belief in the beast’s reality while changing their opinion about its motivation.
A heavy smattering of Spanish runs through the novel, natural enough for characters with Mexican roots. I don’t have much Spanish but I found it easy to follow, so I imagine most readers will be able to cope. Salt Bones is one of the smarter thrillers I’ve read this year, making it one of the easiest to recommend.
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