Richard Beard verfasst Romane und erzählende Sachbücher, die sich mit der Komplexität menschlicher Beziehungen und der Suche nach Identität befassen. Sein Schreiben zeichnet sich durch scharfe psychologische Einblicke und eine präzise Prosa aus, die Charaktere und ihr Innenleben in den Mittelpunkt rückt. Beard erforscht oft die dunkleren Seiten der Existenz und findet darin dennoch hoffnungsvolle Spuren. Seine Werke werden für ihre intellektuelle Tiefe und die starke emotionale Resonanz geschätzt.
Frank Babbitt is an American employee of Disneyland Paris who also searches out sexual and alcoholic adventures in Paris by night. Michael Miller is a bullied English boy with a disability, who dreams of being Mickey Mouse. He gets his break when Frank employs him in the Magic Kingdom.
Jay Mason is experiencing a crisis of faith. Disillusioned with his calling as a Deacon in the Anglican Church of Geneva, and estranged from his pregnant girlfriend, he's about to fall into the murky world of celebrity grave-robbing. His church has been bought by the shadowy antiquities dealer Joseph Moholy, who arrives to claim its most interesting asset: the toe bone of Thomas Becket. Moholy, it turns out, has a large collection of dubiously acquired relics ranging from the arm of Leonardo da Vinci to the jaw of Suleiman the Magnificent. He is keen to add to his collection and Jay, he decides, is the man to assist him.Honing his new skills on the last resting places of Elizabeth Taylor's lap-dogs, Jay finds that grave-robbing can be both lucrative and thrilling, however morally troubling for a man of God, and in Switzerland's cemeteries he finds a rich cast to work on: James Joyce, Richard Burton, John Calvin and Charlie Chaplin all receive his midnight attentions. But Moholy is a ruthless man whose ambitions are perilously high, and as Jay assists him in his search for the holy grail of relics, he puts himself and his loved ones in serious danger. A blend of mind and word games, slapstick and farce, and raw philosophic reflection on fundamentals, Dry Bones is a tour de force.