Mystery Series- Temperance Brennan

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.

Series location:
Primarily Charlotte, NC, and Montreal, Quebec. Brennan splits her time between these two locations as needed, and is occasionally called to other cities.

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
Brennan is on loan to Guatemala to do forensic examinations on a mass grave. The government carried out a genocidal program against the Mayans there from 1962 to 1992.

While she's busy recovering skeletons of people who are mostly from a single family line, she's requested to help with a police case where a leg bone with blue jeans have been found to be clogging the outlet from a large septic tank at a hotel. She spends a totally nasty day recovering most of the rest of the dismembered skeleton from the tank's sections.

Before she's even had a chance to examine it properly, a local official rudely removes the bones from her jurisdiction.

Four local teenage girls are missing, and she is supposed to figure out if the skeleton might be one of those without even having the bones any more, so she gets creative.

A journalist is stalking her, trying to get an interview about the genocide. Two of her co-workers are ambushed. There is pretty much non-stop action in this book.

My primary question is how could large chunks of a body have gotten caught in a septic tank without it being uncovered? When the tank is dug up with a backhoe to recover the pieces there is no suggestion that it was recently opened. I can't imagine a drain hole large enough to accommodate an unbroken skull. A storm drain, might work, but these don't go through a septic tank.

#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 Bones on Ice a novella 2015
A high society woman who has influence with all the right people wants Brennan to examine the body of her daughter Brighton who died three years previously while summitting Mount Everest. The death did not occur anywhere near Charlotte NC, but the family wants answers, although the questions are uncertain.

The body is badly battered, possibly having fallen at death and then from being transported down the mountain in a canvas sled.

None of the other people in the climbing party have any answers. They all reached the base camp and Brighton did not.

Brennan begins studying the body and discovers a number of curious facts.

#19 Speaking in Bones 2015
A large, coarse woman comes to Brennan. Her name is Hazel Strike, but her friends call her "Lucky." She's involved with online volunteer groups that try to find missing persons when the police have given up on the cases, or were never involved in the first place.

Lucky is there to discuss Cora Teague who disappeared over three years ago. Her family refuses to report her as missing, claiming she ran off with a boyfriend. The trouble is, she had no known boyfriend.

Also, Lucky is in possession of a keychain voice recorder that she claims to have found at the location of a recent partial, unidenified body dump. She simply wants Tempe to consider the possibility that the new corpse might be Cora.

The case gets more and more bizarre as Cora's brother turns up in odd places as they search the hills of North Carolina for clues.

#20 The Bone Collection 2016

#21 A Conspiracy of Bones 2020

#22 The Bone Code July 2021

#23 Cold, Cold Bones July 2022

#24 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.

#25 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.

Mystery Series - J.P. Beaumont

J.A. Jance (Creative Commons)

Judith Ann Jance, born 1944, is an author of three different mystery series, all written under her own name. The Beaumont series features Jonas Pierpont Beaumont, a police detective from Seattle.

Technically, these are police procedurals, although Beaumont evolves through the series through various crime-fighting roles.

The Beaumont and Joanna Brady series converge in Partner in Crime, Fire and Ice, and briefly in Proof of Life.

Recurring Characters of Note:
Jonas Pierpont (J.P.) Beaumont, variously a policman, retiree, and private eye
Jonas Pierpont, J.P.'s grandfather
Mel Soames, his third wife
Ron Peters, a fellow detective
Ron's family, wife Amy, Heather and Tracie his daughters
Detective Kramer
Lars Jennsen, his AA sponsor

#1 Until Proven Guilty (1985)
#2 Injustice for All (1986)
#3 Trial by Fury (1986)
#4 Taking the Fifth (1987)
#5 Improbable Cause (1987)
#6 A More Perfect Union (1988)
#7 Dismissed with Prejudice (1989)
#8 Minor in Possession (1990)
#9 Payment in Kind (1991)
J.P. is teamed with detective Kramer because his own partner is ill. Kramer is obnoxious and self-serving. They are called to the scene of a double murder at a school administration building. A security guard and one of the staff are found dead in a janitor's closet, partially nude.

The woman's husband Pete is grief-stricken, but Kramer thinks he's a good suspect because the marriage seems to have been strained. J.P. doesn't quite agree, but he does think the man is lying about something.

Kramer continues to take all the credit for their successes in the case and blames J.P. for anything that goes wrong.

When Kramer manages to get Pete's fingerprints they learn that his name is not Pete Kelsey, and he deserted from the Army twenty years prior. But how does this give him a reason to kill his wife.

J.P. is reuninted with his grandparents after being estranged from them all his life.

This is an exceptionally clever and believable plot.

#10 Without Due Process (1993)
#11 Failure to Appear (1994)

#12 Lying in Wait (1995)

J.P.'s grandfather, from whom he gets the Pierpont name, has recently died. He is attempting to pay more attention to his grandmother.

A horrific death in a fishing boat fire turns out to be a torture murder, and the widow is a woman J.P. attended school with. Else was a cheerleader when he was a basketball player. Also living at the fishing marina is a man named Alan Torvaldsen, who was also a classmate. The dead man is Guntar Gebhardt, whose father was an S.S. officer in World War II. Guntar quietly honored his father's memory with a secret collection of toy German soldiers.

But when a woman on a nearby island dies in a similar manner, all previous conclusions seem to be wrong.

This is a fast-paced book with twists and turns at every juncture.

#13 Name Withheld (1997)
#14 Breach of Duty (1999)
#15 Birds of Prey (2002)
#16 Partner in Crime (2003)
#17 Long Time Gone (2005)
#18 Justice Denied (2007)
A young man who has been released from prison as a result of DNA testing that proved he was not guilty of the crime for which he was convicted seems to be a model citizen. He is taking care of his grandmother who raised him when he is shot point blank and killed at her front door.

J.P. is living with Mel Soames, and they both work for a special task force created by the state Attorny General. Mel is looking at former sex offenders. A disproportionate number of them have died under various scenarios after being released. She's also on the board of SESAC, a group of women who are dedicated to tracking down rapists using DNA from old rape kits that have never been tested.

J.P. has been assigned to examine old missing persons files. One is particularly puzzling. A man went missing the same day Mount St. Helens exploded, but the claim that he was fishing in the area and was vaporized doesn't seem to hold up.

Mel is briefly on the hot seat as it is discovered that she was in Cancun at the same time as the man who abused her best friend as a child. That friend was the reason she had joined SESAC.

Suddenly, a mysterious connection between several of these cases materializes.

J.P.'s children are now grown and Kelly has two children of her own. They all come home for J.P.'s grandmother's funeral.

#29 Fire and Ice (2009)
#20 Betrayal of Trust (2011)
#21 Ring in the Dead (novella, 2013)
#22 Second Watch (2013)
#23 Stand Down (novella, 2015)
#24 Dance of the Bones (2015) (Brandon Walker crossover)

#25 Proof of Life (2017)
Beau has retired, had knee replacement surgery, and is living happily with his third wife, Mel Soames. She is Chief of Police in Bellingham, WA. While they are having dinner out, an acquaintance of theirs, Max, a journalist stops by the table and makes several cryptic statements. Since he and Beau were never on good terms, Beau doesn't pay much attention.

However, just hours later, Max is dead. A young woman, not a blood relative of Max's, but nevertheless one of his only friends and his heir asks Beau to look into the death. She suspects it is not an accident.

If you are a dog lover, this is a great book. Beau and Mel end up "temporarily" babysitting a black Irish Wolfhound. Not only is Lucy Rambo a loveable addition to the story, she plays a large role in the denouement.

#26 Still Dead (novella, 2017)

#27 Sins Of The Fathers (2019)
#28 Nothing to Lose (2022)
#29 Den of Iniquity (2024)

Mystery Series - Alex Cross

James Patterson

James Patterson, born 1947, is one of the most prolific and richest authors of all time. He has written or co-authored well over 100 books. There are currently 32 books in the Alex Cross series.

Alex Cross is a psychologist and police detective, an FBI agent, and one of the most popular fictional black heroes. He's a large man with plenty of brains to go with his imposing presence. His family is highly important to him. Since his first wife was killed, he is continually searching for another woman.

These are police and/or psychological thrillers with plenty of gory and disturbing details.

Series location: primarily Washington, DC and surrounding area.

Recurring characters of note
Maria- Cross' first wife, the mother of Damon and Jannie
Nana Mama- Cross' grandmother who has always been in charge
Damon- his oldest child
Jannie (Janelle)- his daughter
Ali (Alex Junior)- son by his second wife
John Sampson- Cross' partner, they've been friends since childhood, a 6'9" giant
Kyle Craig- an enigma who fills several roles throughout the series
Adele Finaly- Alex's own therapist
Gary Soneji- a recurring nemesis

#1 Along Came a Spider (1993)
In this series opener, Alex and his friend John Sampson seem closer to their black-culture background with a lot of jive talk and comments about being given no respect by whites. They are investigating the murder of three black people from one family when they are pulled off the case to investigate the kidnapping of two rich white children from a prestigious day school. The are naturally resentful.

The math teacher, Gary Soneji, has abducted Maggie Rose and "Shrimpie" Goldberg.

We are let into the twisted mind of Gary Soneji for the first time, with his manic desire to be "The Son of Lindburgh" and to perpetrate the "Crime of the Century." But "Shrimpie" dies by accident as his frail constitution can't handle the dose of sedatives Soneji gives him.

We meet Alex's family- Nana Mama who has raised him since he was ten after his mother died. Nana is a retired schoolteacher and then principal. She doesn't pull any punches. His first wife, Maria, has been dead two years, and Damon and Jannie are still young enough to cuddle.

A fluke mistake results in Soneji's capture. Alex interviews him multiple times in prison, wondering if the man is a consummate actor or truly has multiple personalities.

Meanwhile, the Secret Service men who were assigned to the children are let go. Their supervisor, Jezzie Flannagan, hasn't been fired, but she's depressed. She turns to Alex for comfort and they begin a torrid affair, each sharing hurts from their pasts.

But Soneji masterminds a brilliant escape from the prison.

Note: this was made into a movie starring Morgan Freeman, but don't even bother with the movie. About all it has in common with the book is the very basics of the plot and the characters. It's shallow and doesn't hold together well at all.
#2 Kiss the Girls (1995)

#3 Jack & Jill (1996)
The book begins with an immediate introduction into two high-profile cases. There are a man and woman who are killing people in Washington, DC, apparently chosen at random as part of a bizarre game. Also, someone is murdering small children who attend the same school as Cross' son.

There is more than one twist to the plot before the cases are resolved.

The spectre of Gary Soneji is never far from Alex's mind.

We learn how Alex's parents died and why Nana Mama raised him since he was nine years old. It is mentioned how Alex's first wife died, but this contradicts the details given in Cross. He meets Christine.

#4 Cat and Mouse (1997)
There are two intertwined plots in this book. Alex's nemesis Gary Soneji is still around and intent on mass murders with more apparent abandon then previously. Cross figures out why the man has changed and tries to get ahead of his thinking. Another murderer, dubbed Mr. Smith, has been methodically killing and dismembering one person at a time across the globe. Thomas Pierce is brought in by the FBI, as his amateur study of the killer is most thorough.

Soneji meets his own supposed death, but vows to reach out and kill Cross from beyond the grave. The very next day, the detective is brutally attacked.

Cross is healing from the death of his first wife, the mother of his children. He begins to fall in love with the prinicpal of his children's school, Christine.

#5 Pop Goes the Weasel (1999)
Alex and Christine decide to get married, and the entire family is thrilled. She seems to be perfect for them all.

At work, they are dealing with a number of murders of prostitues in the Southeast (black) section of DC. Of course, the department mostly ignores this situation. Alex and his police friends are working on their own time to find the killer, but the Chief finds out and suspends the other three.

Meanwhile, we learn that there are four ex-MI6 agents playing a game of their own design called The Four Horsemen. Death, on a pale horse, was formerly a government assassin who developed a taste for killing. When Alex gets a little to close to discovering his identity, Christine is kidnapped.

Time drags on. Christine is not found, but Alex does not give up hope because he receives several phone calls which cryptically inform him that "we have her." The Chief of Detectives assigns Patsy to the find the murderer nicknamed "The Weasel." But Patsy begins to realize that Alex was doing a good job and the Chief was trying to make Cross look bad.
#6 Roses are Red (2000)

#7 Violets Are Blue (2001)
In a series this long by a good writer, you can expect to find a lot of interesting sub-genres. The theme of this book is vampires. It builds on the premise that there is a large cult of people who actually believe they are vampires.

It's no secret from the beginning that two attractive young brothers see themselves as vampires. They were raised lawlessly, by hippies, and believe none of the rules of society apply to them. They don't even really think there are rules.

But how does the story play out as Cross chases down "vampire murders" over the course of more than a decade of cases.

#8 Four Blind Mice (2002)
This book has only one story, and the reader is told right up front what is going on. An Army officer is found guilty of murdering three women. He swears he is innocent, and he is a friend of John Sampson. So Cross, who is trying to resign from being a detective, agrees to look into it. We immediately learn that the murders were done by a group of three other ex-military men, code name Three Blind Mice.

How are they finally brought to justice, why did it all happen, and who is the Fourth Mouse?

We learn about John Sampson's childhood. Nana Mama is 82 and may finally be showing her age. Alex's current flame is a Detective from SanFrancisco named Jamilla.

#9 The Big Bad Wolf (2003)
#10 London Bridges (2004)
#11 Mary, Mary (2005)
Someone in Los Angeles is killing mothers who have multiple children. The perpetrator is sending emails to a journalist about the crimes, claiming to be "Mary Smith." Cross is called in to consult (he's now with the FBT) and suspects the killer is a man using a woman's name. But no one can be sure.

We meet a woman named Mary who has three children. She apparently also suffers from lapses of time where she blacks out and can't remember what she did.

Alex is trying to gain custody of his youngest child, Ali, but Ali's mother seems to switch between being rational and vindictive.

The plot is complex and intriguing. We are let inside the killer's head a fair amount, but that doesn't really help identify the person until almost at the end of the book.

#12 Cross (2006)
This book begins with a flashback to when and how his first wife Maria died, killed by a hit man's bullet.

Then it jumps ahead to 2005 when Alex sees a hit man take a bow before he disappears. The hit man turns out the be "The Butcher," who works for the mob, freelances, and is a serial rapist for kicks. He leaves no one alive who threatens him. Is there a connection to Maria's death? Cross and Sanders embark on a long quest to hunt down "The Butcher."

#13 Double Cross (2007)
Bizarre murders begin happening that appear to be staged, literally, as in the murderer is committing them as if he is an actor on a large stage. There seems to be some clue left by the killer at each one, but Cross is having a hard time figuring out what it means.

Also, Alex is in jeopardy from Kyle Craig, despite the man being in prison.

His current girlfriend is named Bree, who is also a Detective.

#14 Cross Country (2008)
This is one of the more horrific and brutal books in the series. Alex investigates two incidents in Washington, DC, where the entire family was killed. He knows one of the victims. His search for justice takes him to Africa where he witnesses the insanity and injustice of anarchy in Siera Leone, Niger, and the Sudan. In fact, he becomes the victim of a fair amount of brutality himself.

He finally returns home, beaten both literally and in his quest for justice. There, he learns that his family has disappeared and he is kidnapped yet again.

Warning- this is a seriously violent story.

#15 Alex Cross's Trial (2009)

#16 I, Alex Cross (2009)
Alex's neice, whom he has not seen for quite a few years is murdered, and her body is disposed of in a most brutal manner. Cross gets involved in trying to solve this crime which leads him to an exclusive sex club. It involves all the alphabet soup agencies, and even the White House.

Meanwhile, Nana Mama, who is in her 90s although she won't admit to an exact age, has a heart attack.

#17 Cross Fire (2010)

#18 Kill Alex Cross (2011)
The children of the US President manage to evade their Secret Servce protectors and while out of their sight, Ethan and Zoe are kidnapped. A van is seen speeding from the school, a chase and crash ensue, but when the van is cut open, the children are not there.

Meanwhile, terrorism on US soil rachets up a notch with a potential attack on the water supply.

Alex is still with Bree.

#19 Merry Christmas, Alex Cross (2012)
#20 Alex Cross, Run (2013)
#21 Cross My Heart (2013)
#22 Hope to Die (2014)
#23 Cross Justice (2015)
#24 Cross the Line (2016)
#25 The People vs. Alex Cross (2017)
#26 Target: Alex Cross (2018)

#27 Criss Cross (2019)
Following the execution of a serial killer, Alex and John Sampson return to D.C. only to find that a copycat killer is toying with them. Or did they work to convict and execute an innocent man? This new murder and many subsequent crimes are tagged with a note from "M." Is this their old nemesis the "Mastermind?"

"M" seems to know way too much about everything, and Alex even begins to question whether someone he saw did is actually dead.

Ali, Alex's son (now 10 years old), becomes interested in mountain biking and strikes up a friendship with an Army Captain. With so many threats to his own life and his family, does Cross dare trust this near stranger to be friends with his son?

#28 Deadly Cross (2020)
#29 Fear No Evil (2021)
#30 Triple Cross (2022)
#31 Cross Down (2023) (co-written with Brenden DuBois; also a John Sampson solo book)[2]
#32 Alex Cross Must Die (2023)