Bare Bones - Softcover

Reichs, Kathy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0434011975 ISBN 13: 9780434011971

Publisher: Heinemann, 2003

Synopsis

First there's the newborn skeleton found in a wood stove. Then a pilot and passenger are found burnt, covered in a strange black substance. Most puzzling is a cache of bones, some animal, some human. All the pieces seem to lead back to an isolated farm. Can Dr Brennan decipher the clues in time?

About this title

Review

"As I was packaging what remained of the dead baby, the man I would kill was burning pavement north toward Charlotte."

With this opening sentence, Kathy Reichs serves notice that her heroine, Temperance Brennan, is in for one of her scariest, most gruesome adventures yet. As fans of this popular series already know, Tempe is a forensic anthropologist: an expert in the human form (especially bones) who helps solve crimes. The abovementioned infant is only the first in a series of grisly remains, both human and animal, that Tempe must sort through and decode. Meanwhile, as several seemingly unrelated cases begin to intertwine, her sleuthing puts her in the crosshairs of a very nasty stalker who hides behind an e-mail alias.

Reichs knows how to keep the narrative ball rolling with a canny mix of plot developments, character delineation, and scientific detail, all relayed in Tempe's smart, breezy, sarcastic voice. In fact, Bare Bones has a few too many characters and plot lines for Reichs--or most readers--to keep perfect track of. But it's a fun ride anyway, enlivened by some steamy romantic scenes and some fascinating, appalling information about the illicit trade in endangered wildlife (did you know that bears' gall bladders fetch more money per ounce than cocaine?). Bare Bones is a crisp, enjoyable read that cements Kathy Reichs's standing as the best forensic-thriller writer at work today. --Nicholas H. Allison

About the Author

Kathy Reichs is the author of eighteen New York Times bestselling novels and the coauthor, with her son, Brendan Reichs, of six novels for young adults. Like the protagonist of her Temperance Brennan series, Reichs is a forensic anthropologist—one of fewer than one hundred and fifteen ever certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology. A professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, she is a former vice president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and serves on the National Police Services Advisory Council in Canada. Reichs’s own life, as much as her novels, is the basis for the TV show Bones, one of the longest-running series in the history of the Fox network.

 

 

About this edition

• Publisher: Heinemann
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0434011975
• ISBN 13: 9780434011971
• Binding: Paperback