Tag: Kathy Reichs

Day 223: 206 Bones

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Cover for 206 BonesPerhaps I am outgrowing Kathy Reichs’ Tempe Brennan series because I don’t pick them up as often as I used to, but I still occasionally enjoy the novels about the forensic anthropologist who shares her work time between Montreal and her home in Charlotte, North Carolina. At the beginning of 206 Bones, Brennan wakes up buried in a tunnel and most of the book is a flashback.

On a case in Chicago with her on-again, off-again romantic partner Andrew Ryan of the Sûreté du Québec, Brennan is accused of botching the autopsy of a Canadian heiress named Rose Jurmain. Brennan eventually realizes that someone in the Montreal office is sabotaging her career by replacing bones in her lab. Tempe begins to suspect that the heiress’s death is linked to that of three more women on Canada, but she is impeded in her investigations by the drama at her workplace.

I find the Tempe Brennan books that take place in Montreal more interesting than those in Charlotte for some reason, perhaps because they seem more atmospheric. The Tempe Brennan series is the very lightest of mystery reading, but the books are rapidly turning into action novels rather than the interesting explorations in forensics that they started out to be.

Day 85: Spider Bones

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Cover for Spider BonesFor years I have been enjoying Kathy Reichs’s series featuring the forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. Brennan alternates between working in Montreal and Charlotte, North Carolina, but I usually prefer the books that take place in Montreal. In Spider Bones, she goes farther afield.

A corpse from an autoerotic episode that is found in a lake in Quebec seems to be John Lowery of North Carolina, but John Lowery supposedly died 40 years earlier in Vietnam. Brennan’s investigation takes her to Hawaii to work with an old friend at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. She brings along her daughter as well as her on-again off-again lover Ryan and his daughter.

When Tempe is asked to help with the remains from an apparent shark attack and to identify some other bones from the Vietnam War, her life becomes endangered, as well has those of her companions.

I enjoyed this novel, but my interest in the series is winding down as the books depart more from the original set-up and become more like thrillers. I think the absorbing parts of these series are her descriptions of Brennan’s work and of the culture of Montreal. Also, the Bones TV series was a severe disappointment, as it bears little relationship to the books.