I had trouble relating to and getting to know Amanda...in fact...I was already to page 60 and didn't feel I knew her. I have a feeling this is a series better read in order starting with book one and as this is my first book in the series...even though I read the end...feel it is not worth reading in its entirety without the context of previous books. Thank you for the copy, though, I wish the book well. (DNF)

I wanted to love this story because the blurb sounded promising. Unfortunately I couldn't connect to the characters and the story fell flat.
Not my cup of tea
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

The fourth book in the series, The Ancient Dead has all the suspense and action I've enjoyed in the previous books, but with a more personal edge. Amanda Doucette's cross country charity tour is in Alberta, preparing for a new educational adventure in the badlands. A stop at an abandoned farm sparks recognition - a photo on her Aunt's wall, and sends Amanda on a journey to find an Uncle she'd forgotten existed. But when old bones are discovered nearby, the search turns even more tense.

I've enjoyed this series, and this one didn't disappoint. It's always fun seeing Canadian locations and history talked about in books. I learned a lot about post WW2 Alberta that I hadn't known about, which is always a fun bonus. Amanda, as usual is passionate and never gives up, and like any untrained amateur sleuth, jumps to conclusions and gets into trouble along the way. Her progressing romance with RCMP officer Chris Tymko has all the bumps and stumbling blocks that a long distance relationship might face, and so feels very real and fragile. I very much look forward to the next instalment of this series..

I read the first two books in Barbara Fradkin's Amanda Doucette mystery series about three years ago. I loved the first book, Fire in the Stars, but rapidly fell out of love with the main character in the second book, The Trickster's Lullaby. I wish I'd remembered that before reading this fourth book in the series, The Ancient Dead.

Author Barbara Fradkin knows how to write a strong, compelling mystery, and her settings create vivid mental pictures as you read. I felt as though I were in the Alberta badlands as Amanda searched for answers. No, the plots and the settings aren't the problems for me in these Amanda Doucette mysteries. The problem is Amanda herself.

She is the type of person who can drive me up the wall without her breaking a sweat. Being with her is like being held captive in a room with thousands of ravenous mosquitoes. In "her relentless drive for answers," Amanda has no filter. She badgers the grieving. She has no shame, thinking nothing of insisting that people put themselves in danger or abuse their positions and possibly lose their jobs in order to give her the answers she requires. Amanda Doucette is the squeaky wheel who demands the grease, and she will not stop until she gets it.

Amanda is a former international aid worker who narrowly escaped with her life from a nightmarish situation in Africa. Now she has PTSD, and her canine companion Kaylee is my favorite character in the book. Amanda's behavior may have been necessary to care for people in her former line of work, but having personally had to deal with countless people like her in my line of work, I can do without being in her presence.

If characters like this don't bother you, please, go ahead and read this mystery series because it is very well crafted. You can even say that Fradkin's art of characterization is powerful as well because Amanda Doucette certainly comes to life. However, for the sake of my blood pressure, The Ancient Dead is the last time I'll be spending time with her. Goodbye, Amanda. I do wish you well.

In The Ancient Dead by Barbara Fradkin (the 4th book in the Amanda Doucette Mystery series), a photographer discovers a human bone in an Alberta coulee. A million undiscovered bones lie hidden in the ruthless wilderness. But this one is newer, fresher. Unearthed, it brings secrets to light. Secrets someone would rather keep buried, no matter the cost.

Amanda Doucette is in Alberta to organize her Fun for Families adventure trip for First Nations youth. The money raised by the charity will support Reconciliation Canada. She plans to have the teenagers dig for dinosaur bones, climb hoodoos and ride horseback over the endless plains. But her research takes a detour when she discovers a connection between the body in the coulee and her uncle, who disappeared in the Alberta badlands thirty years ago.

As always, Barbara Fradkin brings the Canadian wilderness to life. Heat radiates off the parched and cracked soil. The searing shades of the green, ochre and rust landscape, the perfect setting for adventure. But murder has its own itinerary, and Amanda plunges headlong into danger as she digs up the past. The prairie heat will burn your fingers as you turn the pages!

Photographer Todd Ellison is Alberta’s Badlands shooting photos for an upcoming book when he finds bones buried in a coulee. Thinking he has found a new dinosaur fossil, he enlists the help of a buddy and they return to the site and discover the remains are human.

Former aid worker Amanda Doucette is traveling with her RCMP boyfriend Chris as she scouts locations for her next outing with troubled teens. Amanda finds an abandoned farmhouse that reminds her of an old photograph at her aunt Jean’s bedroom in Ontario.

Amanda is stunned to learn that the cocky young cowboy in the photo is Jonathan Lewis, the fraternal twin to her mother who went missing in Alberta thirty years ago. Everyone in the family had kept silent about Jonathan's existence.

When Amanda learns about the buried body in the coulee, she wonders if there is a connection between it and her missing uncle.

This was another strong entry in the Amanda Doucette mystery series. The Alberta Badlands setting and prairie settings were vividly described and Amanda is a feisty protagonist who will do anything to get to the truth.

I received a digital ARC from Netgalley and Dundurn Press with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book and provided this review.

Barbara Fradkin immerses Amanda Doucette in another murder in The Ancient Deed. Amanda is in the area of Drumheller with her RCMP boyfriend on holiday and in preparation for a student group study in Alberta. She ends up tracing the whereabouts of her uncle who disappeared thirty years ago and a skeleton of a man who was killed about that time on the prairies. Her sleuthing instincts are aroused and lead her into danger. Clever cozy with interesting background family history for Amanda.

This novel opens with a love song to the prairies’ people, places, and history. Set partly amid the Drumheller hoodoos, the mystery starts with a dinosaur bone hunt and delves into the dusty secrets of a prairie ranching family. Although well-grounded in the present, the plot has thirty-year old roots that, over the decades, bind the characters and the landscape from Drumheller to Fort Mac and into Calgary’s oil-company office towers as surely as the long roots of prairie grasses tangle beneath gently rolling pastures..

The series lead, 30-something Amanda Doucette, is supposed to be on a mixed work-and-holiday trip with her main squeeze, setting up another teen adventure outing in Alberta's arid southeast between Drumheller and the Milk River valley. A chance encounter with a familiar farmhouse yanks her into an old mystery involving her own family.

As she juggles the competing demands of the job, her clouded family history, a local mystery that seems somehow entwined, and her future with her increasingly frustrated partner, there's suspense tugging the reader in at least three directions. Will she learn what happened at that farmhouse? Will her relationship survive when yet another romantic getaway is sidetracked by crime? Who is still trying to cover up a 30-year old secret, and why?

Part travelogue, part exploration of parallel family secrets, this crime novel is a good fit for both mystery readers and anyone trying to navigate the tricky questions of love and relationships in our highly mobile modern society.

#AncientDead #Netgalley

I read this book as an ARC from the publisher.
The Ancient Dead is the fourth in the Amanda Doucette mystery series by Barbara Fradkin and, in my opinion, the best.
Set in the Badlands of Alberta where dinosaurs used to roam, Doucette gets involved in a family secret along with a find of human bones in a gully. Fradkin carries the reader along at a fast pace while ramping up tension till I could not put the book down. Her protagonist is flawed by previous experiences and the reader engages deeply with her as she tries to come to terms with secrets revealed and clues to follow.
I highly recommend this mystery.

The Ancient Dead.
This thriller is set in Alberta, Canada, and the descriptions of this vast country and various areas are fascinating!
Todd Ellison, a photographer, discovers a bone buried in an area where Dinosaur bones have previously been found, but this bone is human.
Amanda Doucette, also in Alberta, sees an abandoned house, that reminds her of a photograph on the wall of her Aunts house, that shows a young man standing in front of the building. Her Aunt reluctantly confirms that the man is her missing brother, Jonathan, Amanda’s uncle.
The photographer is also at the scene of the abandoned house, and their stories collide.
I found Amanda to be a real pain in the derrière, very interfering and oblivious to people’s feelings, whilst she was investigating her uncle’s disappearance. She seemed to get great pleasure from dragging all and sundry into her family problems, I felt so sorry for Chris, her boyfriend.
I didn’t really feel the love for this book, it annoyed me , Amanda was a little too needy for my taste. However, I did love the dog!! I admit I had to look up what a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling retriever was, but when I found a picture, I thought that Kaylee was a gorgeous girl and she and Amanda had a very harmonious relationship, perhaps the only one in the whole book!
I will rate this as a 3 star read. This is my honest and unbiased opinion. I will send reviews to Goodreads and Amazon when the pages are open.

This mystery is so well developed and the detail so precise that I thought it was a true crime book. Entirely credible, every character was realistic - and often unlikable - and I found myself fully invested in reaching the outcome. The author is insightful and the writing crisp - very accessible for all readers who love a good mystery.

This was a surprising read for me. I was unsure the first couple of chapters and then the book just hooked me and I couldn't put it down. The atmosphere and and characters were terrific and truly made the book. The story was very well written and made for a grand reading experience.

I was excited to see a book set in Canada, especially a murder mystery. This book kept me interested throughout the whole thing. I needed to keep reading to find out how it would end. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the main female character. I found her annoying at times. This Is also definitely a cozy mystery. In itself there is nothing wrong with that, but I prefer darker mysteries and as such I might not have enjoyed it as much as someone who usually goes for cozy mysteries. I’d give it more like 3.5 stars.

A photographer, exploring rural and remote parts of Alberta, uncovers a bone in an area where many dinosaur bones have been discovered. Has he made a find? Or does the bone belong to an indigenous resident or a settler? He enlists the help of a local man he knows from the past and they dig just enough to realize they've found human remains that will need the attention of the authorities.

Meanwhile Amanda Doucette, scouting locations for a youth program in Alberta, sees an abandoned house that reminds her of a photo in her aunt's home. She contacts her aunt, who is cagey about the man in the photo and her reasons for keeping it all these years. When Amanda runs into an Albertan who looks just like her aunt, her aunt confesses the photo was of her long-missing brother, an uncle Amanda barely remembers. As she doggedly tracks down the story of her uncle and his disappearance, her story crosses over and merges with that of the photographer.

There are some well-developed characters (especially the eccentric bed and breakfast owner who hosts Amanda and her RCMP boyfriend) and an evocative use of the desolate prairie location that hides bones and has its own wide-open beauty. The plot is complex (overly so?) and while it engages a #metoo theme, it doesn't really do much with it. The pacing flags and the protagonist is not entirely convincing in her relentlessness. (Her motivation is basically explained by other characters telling us "she's like that." Maybe if I'd read other books in the series I would be more easily convinced that an intelligent and seemingly sensitive woman would "be like that" but it introduced implausibility into the storyline for me.) So points off for pacing and protagonist, high marks for setting and supporting roles.

Thank you NetGalley and Dundurn Press for the eARC.
Amanda Doucette is in Alberta getting ready to take one of her educational trips with indigenous youth when bones are discovered near where she and her love, Chris (who is with the RCMP), are spending some much needed time together. The bones are found to be human and about 30 years old and Amanda believes they may be those of a long lost uncle.
The descriptions of the landscape are fantastic, so wild and forbidding and, so fascinating!, full of dinosaur fossils. But I got a bit fed up with Amanda, she was so obsessed with finding the truth about the skeletal remains that she involved Chris, her business partner and the families concerned, with the mystery into her quest ad nauseam. It felt intrusive and rude at times. I do love her relationship with Kaylee, her beloved dog, who she looks after with much love and care. I also love the author's descriptions of the different parts of Canada in her books and hope she'll do Ontario at some point. It's a treat to read good Canadian authors; having lived in Montreal and Toronto I love reading about the Canadian wild outside of the big cities.

Thank you NetGalley and Dundurn Press for the advanced copy of The Ancient Dead in return for an honest review. I had read the three previous Amanda Doucette books by Barbara Fradkin with much enjoyment, and I regret this was not as compelling for me.

Photographer Todd Ellison is on a photo shoot that includes remote farmlands and the dry landscape. He is now in dinosaur territory where many ancient reptiles were buried. He hopes to add a photo of a dinosaur bone (or at least one of a buffalo) to a book he intends to publish. When he finds a bone, he learns it was not from an ancient animal but human remains buried about 30 years earlier.

There was much to admire in the book. The vivid portrayal of the prairies and its people gave a strong visual impression and the plot was well executed. I thought it slow-paced. I found the protagonist, Amanda, pushy and annoying but many readers will admire her conviction and determination.

Amanda is in Alberta preparing for an adventure and educational experience for a group of Indigenous youngsters from the far north. The dry fields and abandoned farmhouses remind her of a photo on her aunt's wall. The photo depicted a young man standing in front of a similar building. Her aunt tells her this was a picture of her uncle who was left home and he was in this area after a family dispute. He has not been heard from since. Amanda becomes obsessed with discovering what happened to him.

I was bothered by her aggressive, personal search for answers. This lead to her intruding into people's lives, dredging up painful memories, secrets, and profound sorrows. Her work preparing for and participating in the children's foundation activities took second place. She demanded that her boyfriend, Chris, an RCMP officer, use his position and connections to investigate and find answers for her. She also used her friend, Matthew, in the same way. She met Matthew when she was an aid worker in the worlds' trouble spots and he was a foreign correspondent. He now helps Amanda run the charitable foundation. Both men seemed reluctant to be pushed into helping her investigate her uncle Jonathan's mysterious disappearance from the vicinity 30 years earlier. They adored her and couldn't refuse her demands.

It was learned that Jonathan had been seeing a young woman from a wealthy oil family. She was fired from her job and he quit protest. They both disappeared but not together. When Amanda learns of the body unearthed from the coulee, she fears it is Uncle Jonathan and is determined to find out who killed him.

In the meantime, a young reporter has been attacked in her apartment. She had been near death and was researching a story involving the man's death. Todd's information is in her missing computer and he fears a similar attack. Amanda keeps making assumptions about the case. She is on the wrong track with her theories. The police have warned her to stop interfering in their murder case.

Now she is being followed by a man in a white vehicle and fears he plans to harm her. The car is identified to belong to a Private Investigator from BC. Why is he spying on her, and who can be paying him? It is obvious that someone does not want the true facts surrounding the probable murder to be revealed. There is a violent and surprising ending concluding with the solution to the mystery.
I will read more books featuring Amanda Doucette. I just hope she learns to relax more in her pursuits.

328 pages

4 stars

Having visited Alberta several times, the descriptions of the land and its inhabitants resonated with me. It is exactly as Ms. Fradkin describes. I simply love it.

A photographer out on a walking trip near Drumheller in Alberta to take pictures for his upcoming book stumbles on some bones. He doesn't even know what kind they are until a friend and he return to the site and discover that they are human.

At the same time, Amanda Doucette is scouting the area and planning her next trip with her company that helps children have adventures. She notices a picture in the B & B that rings a faint bell.

When she contacts her Aunt Jean and her mother, she gets curt and distinctly cold replies. Aunt Jean finally relents and shares with Amanda that she has an uncle named Jonathan who lived out in Alberta. Could the man in the photo be him? Amanda becomes obsessed with finding Jonny.

She investigates and gets some surprisingly nasty reactions. Then, the respondents seem to thaw somewhat and she begins to learn the whole story. Or, so she thinks.

Then she ;earns about the bones found not far from where she is staying.

This is a very well written and plotted novel. It moved a little slowly for me. I felt it wasn't as good as Ms. Fradkin's previous Amanda books. I did like having Amanda's boyfriend Corporal Chris along for the ride. I hope he doesn't tire of all her getting into hot water – and making some unfounded assumptions – as she does in this story.

I want to thank NetGalley and Dundurn Press for forwarding to me a copy of this very good book for me to read, enjoy and review.