Jenna Blake is a student who works part-time in the local coroner's office. When two apparently unconnected people suddenly burst into flames with no apparent cause the immediate suspicion is Spontaneous Human Combustion. But surely SHC is only a myth – it doesn't really exist… does it?

As Jenna assists in the autopsies of the victims there seems to be no other possibility but then a third death seems to provide a link to the others and a bizarre explanation begins to take shape. But will Jenna be able to identify the killer before he claims another life?

Burning Bones is another of the Body of Evidence series of thrillers all featuring Jenna Blake, a student who, when she isn't in college studying, assists the local coroners' office. Needless to say, she always seems to end up in the middle of major cases that confound the police and inevitably it is Jenna who discovers the truth and identifies the culprit.

In all the stories I have read so far the crimes have had a certain supernatural element and in the case of Burning Bones it is SHC. One aspect of these stories that I particularly enjoy is the way that the supernatural side is handled. In other similar stories there has been a "Scooby-Doo" style reveal where the perpetrator is revealed to be an ordinary person with no special abilities but with the Jenna Blake books, although the apparently mysterious cause is shown to have a scientific logic behind it the story never resorts to claiming it was all just an elaborate trick.

These books will never be considered great works of literature but just because a book is considered to be a classic work doesn't necessarily make it good to read. I have, in the past, tried to read some of the great writers of all time only to give up after a few chapters and reach for something more enjoyable. And it's this kind of book I reach for.

This series of books is ideal for the young adult reader who fancies reading an exciting crime thriller with a teenage cast of characters: the violence is quite restrained, the deaths not too descriptive and the language inoffensive. Thoroughly entertaining.