Dr. Kathy Reichs |
Kathy Reichs, PhD. is herself a forensic anthropologist, one of only 100 certified in the United States. Out of this career, she writes both non-fiction on the topic, and fiction. Her book series featuring Temperance Brennan inspired the television series Bones. Temperance is the forensic anthropologist for North Carolina who also travels to Quebec regularly as part of her job.
The Fox TV show does not follow the books very closely. "Bones" is possibly on the autism spectrum, which is not at all true of the character in the books.
The books are authentic police proceedurals. Some unnecessary language. Graphic descriptions of dead bodies, particularly the ones in bad enough condition to call in a forensic anthropologist. Overall, I give the series high marks. Temperence is professional but real. There is a small amount of personal interaction so that we understand who she is and that she has some flaws. There are a lot of dream sequences in the books. Sometimes the dreams help Tempe find a clue in a case, sometimes they are just bizarre. There is a little overuse of the trite "something nagging that the protagonist can't quite remember" plot motif.
Recurring Characters:
Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist
Katy, her daughter
Harry (Harriet), her sister
Andrew Ryan, fellow detective and sometimes lover
#1 Déjà Dead 1997
Temperence Brennan works for the Laboratoire de Médecine Légale in Montreal. Utility workers uncover some bones which come to Brennan for analysis. They turn out to be human, and she tentatively connects them with other skeletons which were found with one hand cut off. But the police aren't seeing the connection.
Before long, another similar body is found, but there are also differences. A hidey-hole apartment of a sleazebag is discovered, but he escapes. A map on the wall leads Tempe to yet another skeleton.
Meanwhile, Tempe's friend Gabby fears she is being stalked, and Tempe also receives threats.
For a first novel in a series, this one is full-bodied.
#2 Death du Jour 1999
The book is split between Montreal and Charlotte, NC. In Montreal, a house fire leads to the discovery of six bodies, none of which seem to have much connection to each other. The house is owned by a man in Belgium and is rented to various people. Two of the victims are infant twin boys. Four of the victims did not die as a result of the fire, including the twins. Brennan is particularly moved by their deaths.
Oddly enough, a trail of telephone calls from the house where the fire occurred leads to another house in North Carolina which is occupied by a seemingly benign but secretive group. They don't quite rise to cult status, but they are strange. They deny all knowledge of the calls and of knowing any of the victims in Canada.
Then, one young woman with a baby of her own, reaches out to Tempe for help.
#3 Deadly Décisions 2000
Tempe is working in Montreal, and the Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs are escalating a gang war. A young girl is caught in the crossfire and killed. Tempe is livid about the loss of innocent life.
An informant leads the police to the old graves of two gang members in exchange for favors. At the same site, the skull and two leg bones of an other young girl are found. Tempe really wants to identify this girl, and she has a chance at it, despite the time since death because the girl had a shunt in her skull for hydrocephalus.
Her nephew Kit, Harry's son, comes to visit and he is enamored with the motorcycle culture. He makes friends with a reporter that Tempe really dislikes. Is the reporter up to no good, and is Kit more involved than having a casual interest?
#4 Fatal Voyage 2001
#5 Grave Secrets 2002
#6 Bare Bones 2003
Temperance is examining the sparse remains of a dead newborn baby that was burned in a wood stove. She's contemplating the personal repurcussions since she knows the baby's grandfather, when she is called to a site where there are a large number of bones buried in plastic bags. These turn out to be bear bones- of multiple bears. Almost all bear bones, except for some bird bones.
Then she has to go to the crash site of a small plane where the two occupants were badly burned. When she finally gets back to the bears... uh oh... there are some human hand bones too.
The quest to find out what the plane was doing when it crashed leads the investigation to an old house in the country with a privy full of more bones. Do any of the bones connect?
#7 Monday Mourning 2004
#8 Cross Bones 2005
#9 Break No Bones 2006
#10 Bones to Ashes 2007
Tempe is in her Montreal office and is working her usual busy schedule of examining old bones, skeletons, and damaged bodies, when she hears of a skull and its skeleton which are sitting in someone's office because they seem to be too old to trace. She requests they be sent to her.
They require extensive cleaning, but the more she examines them, the more she suspects they might belong to a childhood friend of hers who went missing at age 13. This seems a stretch of coincidence, but the possibility stirs up all the old memories and questions as to what happened to Evangeline. The friend was Acadian, and that is where these bones were found.
She convinces the police to open a cold case investigation which leads to child porn, trafficking, and unexpected answers about her friend.
#11 Devil Bones 2008
#12 206 Bones 2009
#13 Spider Bones also titled Mortal Remains 2010
#14 Flash and Bones 2011
#15 Bones are Forever 2012
#16 Bones of the Lost 2013
#17 Bones Never Lie 2014
Tempe's old nemisis Anique Pomerleau, the only one who ever got away, is back. Young girls are going missing and their bodies turn up a few days later, posed and not mutilated or sexually assaulted.
Tempe and Ryan check into a number of other cold cases that seem to fit the profile, and with the help of Tempe's mother doing volunteer computer research, begin to see a pattern forming. But Mama has cancer and is refusing treatment.
There is a huge plot twist in the middle.
And Ryan asks Tempe to marry him.
#18 Speaking in Bones 2015
#19 The Bone Collection 2016
#20 A Conspiracy of Bones 2020
#21 The Bone Code July 2021
#22 Cold, Cold Bones July 2022
#23 The Bone Hacker August 2023
Tempe is working in Montreal when a few scraps of a body are recovered, hacked up by the propellor on a large boat. It is assumed this is a man who jumped off a bridge. A few days later, the rest of the body washes up, but the many died from a gunshot wound. A tattoo identifies him as part of a gang from the islands of Turks and Caicos. For some reason the Medical Examiner from the islands flies immediately to Montreal.
This woman, Tiersa Musgrove, convinces Tempe to return to the Turks and Caicos with her to study a strange set of murders where each victim has had the left hand cut off. There they are sidetracked by a boat found floating with five dead bodies on board.
Continually sidetracked by other cases, Tempe always manages to get back to the mutilated bodies, although she is stymied by the lack of a good microscope and unhelpful people.
This case is a bit like a classic mystery at the end with a whole chapter to explain parts of the story that the reader has not yet heard enough about to understand.
#24 Fire and Bones August 2024
While working on her normal caseload in North Caroline, Tempe is asked by her daughter to grant an interview with a journalist friend in D.C. Brennen isn't thrilled, but agrees for Katy's sake and drives to the capital.
The next day there is a fire in an older building in D.C. that was being used as an illegal rental property. Four people die in the fire. Tempe helps with recovery, and discovers a fifth body in a forgotten sub-basement that had nothing to do with the fire, but dates from about the 1940s.
Soon another building just blocks away burns, and a man is shot in a separate incident. With some research, it is discovered that there may be a connection beteween all these incidents, but not the body in the basement whose identity cannot be determined.
