All the Silent Bones is a gripping psychological thriller that delves into the complexities of childhood trauma and its long-lasting effects on adult relationships. The story revolves around four childhood friends—Ray, Eddie, Matthew, and Bobby—whose bond was shattered years ago after a traumatic incident at Blackamore Pond. Now, decades later, Matthew is found murdered, and a chilling message at the crime scene suggests that the killer is someone from their past.

What Works
Atmospheric Setting: The novel's setting in a small, secluded town adds to the tension and mystery, creating an environment where secrets are hard to keep.

Character Depth: Funaro skillfully develops each character, making their motivations and backstories compelling and integral to the unfolding mystery.

Narrative Structure: The alternating perspectives provide a multifaceted view of events, keeping readers engaged and invested in uncovering the truth.

What Could Improve
Pacing: At times, the narrative slows down, which might cause some readers to lose momentum.

Predictability: While the twists are well-executed, some may find certain developments foreseeable.

Final Thoughts
All the Silent Bones is a compelling read for fans of psychological thrillers that explore deep emotional and moral complexities. Gregory Funaro crafts a story that is both engaging and thought-provoking, making it a worthwhile addition to the genre.

Wow super fast paced....no slow burn in this one. Characters are interesting and their bond is deep. One of the boys fell through the ice on a frozen pond and that changed everything. This book is very twisty and I could not put it down. This is my first book from this author but it will not be my last. I can't recommend this book enough.

Thank you to Netgalley & BooksGoSocial for allowing me to read this ARC.

A frequent theme in popular literature is that of a group of pre-teens who bond together over a shared childhood experience that later affects them in their adult lives. Stephen King has employed variations of the theme in his novella, “The Body” (filmed as “Stand by Me”), and the epic novel, “It.” Author Gregory Funaro isn’t as well known as King, but he makes good use of a childhood bonding experience in his new novel, “All the Silent Bones.” Funaro’s story doesn’t have supernatural clowns or dead bodies found in the woods, but it’s got something King’s stories don’t… a good mystery.

“All the Silent Bones” begins chronologically in 1979, when four sixth-grade classmates in Cranston, Rhode Island, have a life-changing experience one winter day. Bobby Bonetti, one of the boys, falls through thin ice at a local pond into the freezing water. The other three boys form a human chain to pull Bobby to safety. Later, the local newspaper publicizes the story, and the boys become local heroes for a while.

Fast forward to the present day, and the boys (now men in their 50s) have drifted apart. Ray Dawley is a failed actor on his third marriage who has moved back into his childhood home. Eddie Sayers is a local cop. Matt Kauffman is a successful business executive in New York. Bobby, who suffered from abuse as a child besides his adventure in the icy pond, has had the most interesting “career path.” He’s now a psychotic serial killer, murdering people who have a “bad aura” around them. That’s no spoiler; the author details Bobby’s most recent killing in the prologue.

Bobby’s three classmates reunite at the funeral of Matt’s brother (Bobby doesn’t attend) and agree to get together that night at Ray’s house to eat, drink, play video games, and rehash old times. The reunion doesn’t quite go as planned. Ray and Eddie pass out and wake up the next morning, claiming not to know anything that occurred since they passed out. Matt is gone, but he turns up hours later in his car, strangled to death and dumped in the same pond Bobby fell into as a child.

The first half of “All the Silent Bones,” until Matt’s murder, is primarily a character study of the four boyhood friends. The author shifts the point of view from chapter to chapter among the characters, allowing their life stories over the intervening 40 years to unfold in non-chronological bits and pieces. These results can be challenging to follow at times, especially for readers trying to keep track of all the spouses, former spouses, children, and other relatives of the main characters. Furthermore, the author presents some chapters from the perspectives of secondary and even tertiary characters, each with their own set of acquaintances. While Bobby’s character arc is easy to follow (especially since the author includes some records of Bobby’s therapy sessions), the other three former chums come across as far more ordinary men with a laundry list of typical middle-age problems. None of their stories were compelling, and as a result, I found it difficult for the book to hold my attention.

The book’s pace changed dramatically, and my interest was piqued after Matt’s murder. The rest of “All the Silent Bones” became an excellent dual mystery in which police try to solve the murders of Matt and the man Bobby killed in the book’s prologue. That victim was a small-time hood who abused his girlfriend, who was Matt’s niece. So, the question arose whether the two murders were connected. Bobby is the most obvious suspect in Matt’s murder (at least for readers), but evidence arises that casts some doubt on that theory.

“All the Silent Bones” is a classic fair play mystery in the best tradition of authors like Agatha Christie, but with a contemporary feel because of the nature of the characters and the author’s style. Funaro reveals all the clues along the way readers will need to figure out who killed Matt. However, the author’s insistence on fair play explains the book’s complexity. Some clues are carefully concealed in what would otherwise seem to be throwaway bits of information. But if the author didn’t hide those clues among other throwaway bits of information that ultimately went nowhere, the mystery would be easy to solve. Gregory Funaro isn’t at Agatha Christie’s level of maintaining reader interest while dispensing multiple red herrings. However, once I realized what the author had done, I was far more understanding and forgiving of the relatively slow-moving first half. The ultimate payoff came about 50 pages from the book’s end when the author completely stunned me with an unexpected revelation.

Besides the mystery aspects of the book, the characters themselves became more interesting. The murders and subsequent investigation became cathartic events for the surviving innocent characters, and I was pleased that the author provided some details about their eventual fates. They became quite likable by the end of the book. I also felt the author (a Rhode Island native) provided an excellent overview of life in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Cranston (a Providence suburb that’s the second largest city in RI). While I’ve read plenty of novels set in Boston and its Massachusetts environs, well-written stories set in Rhode Island are relatively few and quite welcome.

“All the Silent Bones” requires patience by readers who may get bored or confused by the book’s first half. The ultimate payoff is worth it. The second half could use a bit of tighter editing as well. (Funaro suffers from the Dr. Evil syndrome of having the villain explain every detail of their actions.) The book proves to be one of the best mysteries I’ve read for a while and, ultimately, a good character study as well. I won’t remain silent; I recommend “All the Silent Bones.”

NOTE: The publisher graciously provided me with a copy of this book through NetGalley. However, the decision to review the book and the contents of this review are entirely my own.

This was a read that I wish to read again. I highly recommend this book. It's thrilling, scary, well-paced and written like a dream.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this phenomenal book!

This story pulled me in from the very first page and never let go. Gregory Funaro’s writing is so immersive and vivid—I felt like I was right there beside the characters, experiencing every twist, emotion, and eerie moment with them. The pacing was spot-on, the atmosphere was rich, and the characters were deeply real. I absolutely loved this book and will be recommending it to every thriller lover I know.

Ray, Matt, Eddie and Bobby were childhood friends until the day one of them nearly drowned. What should have brought them closer together drove an unspoken wedge between them. Fast-forward 40 years to a reunion, to which only three of them are invited - the night ends in murder and a message linked to their past. Who is next, and why?
I found this book very difficult to get into as there was so much swearing in the opening pages that I found it off-putting. I am glad I persevered as this book delivered. It explored the complex relationships between the four men, haunted by the occurrences that took place on one fateful day. An addictive page-turner with an explosive twist.

Not only is this my favorite NetGalley read, not only my favorite 2025 read, but my new all time favorite book!
As a true crime, whodunnit, mental health struggles, childhood-to-adulthood story loving Italian whose Italian grandfather grew up on a farm in Rhode Island (and whose family grew up very near [proximity] to some key “family” back in the day), I cannot gush enough over how much I LOVE this book.

this book is a brilliant tale of how something that happens to us can ripple effect either so much or all of what comes next for us and who we become.
does that purely depend on the act? does it depend on your other life surrounding the event? does it depend on who you have around you to be there, shape or support you after the fact? this book goes one step further in the unease factor though.
i think many of us have something in our lives where we think what if it had been different, not happened, told someone etc.
this story tells us the tale of how a group of friends are involved and then changed by an event. but as is like most things such secrets as this never stay secret. not when there is consequences that have and will continue to occur.
all our group are flawed. or maybe we should just call them human. but a little more weight is carried around by all these men. and it was interesting to see just how differently the man grew up and how the event effected them.
and with the added depth of darkness in this one it truly is a truama you are watching evolve into something that never goes away and instead might linger and change and evolve into something much worse.

"All the Silent Bones" leans more towards a typical crime thriller than horror, but the (admittedly limited but crucial) touch of horror pervading the book is so well-done, I'd have no problem if the book were marketed as wholly horror. I enjoyed it from start to finish, despite the ending building on elements of the story very much in the background (and including an off-putting "villain monologue" at the end as well). It's also a slow burn, the most important part of the plot (driving the rest of the story forward) appearing midway through the book.

I would not consider any of this a flaw, however, since Funaro's writing shows incredible craftmanship, impressive attention to detail, and superb dialogue and characterization. It manages to tell an original story with the main characters being a group of male friends, portrayed both as kids and adults, without going the way of "IT" or "The Body" (as it usually happens), it captures the Rhode Island atmosphere perfectly, the themes of family issues and overall traumatic childhood are handled in an exemplary manner (with neither much fanfare nor turning everything into a crusade or a social message), and, finally, the darkness it deals with is displayed with uncanny precision and compelling realism.

My single complaint would be that the novel is so good, I really wanted more from it in relation to horror. It was disappointing that Bobby, the kid whose life derails when something bad happens to him as a teen, and who, as an adult, turned out to have so much potential for creepiness, all but remained untapped. I'm not saying that Funaro wasted a perfectly good character, who might have turned the story into a fascinating horror tale of possession and associated supernatural phenomena (the book does include these); I'm only noting that the author presses harder on the mystery thriller/police procedural aspects of the story, and, after some point, unnecessarily foregoes horror altogether.

In sum, this is a page-turner, and will easily satisfy lovers of horror, urban crime stories, detective tales, and psychological thrillers. Highly recommended!

The book, All the Silent Bones, by Gregory Funaro is overall well-written but not without flaws. As kids, the book’s main characters share a trauma that stays with them into adulthood, showing itself through restless nights and nightmares into eventually, murders. One of the character, Bobby, was intense and interesting at the beginning, but it felt like he was put on the back burner later on, which was a letdown. I wish the characters as adults had been as dynamic as they were when kids, and that Bobby had been focused more on when compared to the others. The use of a certain diagnosis felt too much like a crutch, and I wish there were more therapy sessions noted when the author decided to go that route. I did not care for the back-and-forth between the past and the present because it was a little awkward at times and unnecessary at others. The dialogue took the storytelling to another level, however, by flowing nicely and bringing out the characters' personalities. For me, it's a pet peeve whenever authors use the book title or chapter titles in the book itself, so I felt like that was a little redundant. While I wasn't thrilled about the twist, I did like how it was handled; it was still a bit creative and did not feel like a rushed ending. Even though this is a thriller, I found myself laughing often because of the funny dialogue or the wit of Funaro in general. Opposite to that, I found myself feeling a little uneasy after a few scenes. I will say this book is more of a mystery/thriller than a horror, but it still does a good job handling death, killings, and making you think of the darkness within others around you–and perhaps within yourself.


Thank you NetGalley for providing me with this book for my honest review.

Ray Dawley, Eddie Sayers, and Matthew Kauffman were the best of friends. Then new kid Bobby “Bones” Bonetti Became friends with Ray. When winer comes, the boys are looking forward to go sledding. Bobby is hesitant about the location Eddie and Matthew wants to go to—Blackmore Pond. At Blackamore Pond last summer, where Bobby had caught a fish, Eddie grabbed it and cut the tail off the fish and threw it back into the pond. Bobbie was upset. He didn’t want the fish to die. They end up going there. The hill ends up at the edge of the pond. Eddie tests the ice by walking and stamping on it. Eddie goes down the hill first. Eddie twists the tobaggon so it slides sideways missing the pond entirely and the snow bank. Ray goes next but ends up landing in the snow bank. When Bobbie goes down, he hits the snow bank and goes fling off the tobaggon. He ends up with a bump on his head. Ra runs down to see if Bobby is okay. He also tries to do a test to see if Bobby is okay. When Eddie and Matthew go back up the hill, Ray says to Bobby we can go home if you want. Obey says no as he doesn’t want Eddie to think he is a wimp. He asks Ray to join the boys as he wants a minute to himself. Becoming aware of a beautiful white fish without a tail Bobby follows it on the ice until he falls through. Bobby is saved by the boys. An ambulance is called and so are the police. Bobby seems to be in shock. The police questioned the three boys about the accident. Forty years later, the oys now men have a reunion at Ray’s house. The next day one of the men is dead. Why? What was the reason?

The author has written a tense and disturbing horror novel. The author writes about the impact of childhood abuse and its influence on adult relationships. I found the book delightful (note—I enjoy horror. It is my favorite genre to read.) I like reading the different points of view from the characters. I have not read this author’s books but I will be looking forward to reading some of his books.

All the Silent Bones ended up being a letdown for me. Despite being described as a “thriller”, the main event that kicks off the story (at least according to the blurb) doesn’t occur until almost halfway through the book. I spent the entire first half of the book wondering if the “tense and exciting” parts promised in the description were ever going to occur. Eventually enough started happening that it pulled me in, but the whole thing felt surprisingly slow paced.

I also found most of the characters to be disappointingly one-dimensional. Despite the story being told from the perspectives of multiple people, none of them felt very “real”, and many of the internal monologues felt so disconnected from the main story being told that I found it difficult to care about them.

Without giving too much away, there is a reveal at one point about a diagnosis of one of the characters that I personally find to be pretty overused in mystery/thriller fiction. It could just be my personal bias due to having read a number of books where this is used as a “twist”, but it’s something that I don’t feel is particularly unique or surprising anymore, and in this case I didn’t even think it added that much to the story, besides maybe giving the villain some more “ammo”?

Speaking of the villain, the whole “bad guy reveals entire plan in a monologue” cliche just doesn’t cut it for me anymore.

All in all I think this book will appeal to readers who want something quick and entertaining to read, but it didn’t end up being my cup of tea.

Was not expecting that, omg. This book was fantastic! It twisted and it turned, and I can’t say too much because I don’t want to spoil it omg! I highly recommend people read this, it is so good! I’m going to grab a physical copy asap!

All the Silent Bones is a wild, fast paced ride that kept me turning pages, even when I wasn’t entirely sure where it was taking me. While I genuinely enjoyed the read, I think this novel struggles a bit with genre identity. At various points, it feels like a police procedural, an organized crime thriller, a supernatural mystery, and a psychological drama, and a murder mystery... all rolled into one. The frequent shifts in tone and direction left me feeling a bit disoriented, as if I had genre whiplash.

That said, where this book truly shines is in its character work. Gregory Funaro delivers a masterclass in character development, making even a wide cast feel fully realized and their motivations crystal clear. Each character’s actions felt grounded and believable, which is no small feat in a story juggling so many elements.

Even though I found myself scratching my head at the plot’s twists and the story’s overall genre trajectory, the strength of the characters kept me invested from start to finish. If you're looking for a thriller with rich character arcs and don’t mind a bit of narrative chaos along the way, All the Silent Bones is worth the read.

Many thanks to NetGalley, BooksGoSocial, and Gregory Funaro for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinions.

Stayed up late to Read this in a night, I really enjoyed this book. I would read more books by this author

Ray, Eddie, and Matthew were close friends until Bobby “Bones” fell through the ice at Blackamore Pond. They saved Bobby but something else, evil came back with him that exploded their friendship.

Forty years later, Ray returns.. Bobby, now on disability has been hiding a dark secret from his past.

After the friends reunite Matthew is found murdered near the pond, with a message meant for the friends. Possibly one is the killer.....

"All the Silent Bones" is a thriller exploring the impact of childhood trauma on adult relationships. I enjoyed the book but felt it was a story ive seen alot of. It's worth a read so give it a shot.

Thank you for the opportunity to read an early copy of all the silent bones. I absolutely devoured this book! I couldn’t stop turning the pages because I needed to know what would happen next

Ray Dawley, Eddie Sayers, and Matthew Kauffman were close friends until Bobby “Bones” Bonetti fell through the ice at Blackamore Pond. They saved Bobby but released something sinister that shattered their friendship.

Forty years later, Ray, a retired professor, returns home. Eddie is a retired homicide detective, and Matthew is a banker. Bobby, now on disability from his corrections officer job, harbors a dark secret linked to his past.

After a reunion, Matthew is found murdered near the pond, with a message meant for the remaining friends. Is one of them the killer?

"All the Silent Bones" is a gripping thriller exploring the lasting impact of childhood trauma on adult relationships.
I enjoyed the book but felt it was a trope that is visited so much. It was the author's unique take on that trip however, so makes it worth the read.