Bones to Ashes (Temperance Brennan Series #10)
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781416525653
Summary
Temperance Brennan, like her creator Kathy Reichs, is a brilliant, sexy forensic anthropologist called on to solve the toughest cases. But for Tempe, the discovery of a young girl's skeleton in Acadia, Canada, is more than just another assignment. Evangeline, Tempe's childhood best friend, was also from Acadia. Named for the character in the Longfellow poem, Evangeline was the most exotic person in Tempe's eight-year-old world. When Evangeline disappeared, Tempe was warned not to search for her, that the girl was "dangerous."
Thirty years later, flooded with memories, Tempe cannot help wondering if this skeleton could be the friend she lost so many years ago. And what is the meaning of the strange skeletal lesions found on the bones of the young girl?
Meanwhile, Tempe's beau, Ryan, investigates a series of cold cases. Three girls dead. Four missing. Could the New Brunswick skeleton be part of the pattern? As Tempe draws on the latest advances in forensic anthropology to penetrate the past, Ryan hunts down a serial predator. (.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1950
• Where—Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.S, American University; M.A., Ph.D., North-
western University
• Awards—Arthur Ellis Award, Best Novel (1997)
• Currently—lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Kathy Reichs burst onto the fiction scene in the late 1990s with her first novel, , a thriller rooted in an expert knowledge of science and medicine and powered by a strong female protagonist, Temperance Brennan. Since then, Reichs has been a regular feature on bestseller lists and is often mentioned in the same breath as the chief of the autopsy whodunit, Patricia Cornwell. (.)
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Both a forensics expert who has seen—firsthand— the aftermath of murderers and a novelist whose heroine tracks villains like the "Blade Cowboy," Kathy Reichs has some ideas about what the face of evil looks like: ordinary. "I see the perpetrator across the courtroom when I'm testifying. Generally, I'm underwhelmed," she said in a 2000 interview published on her web site." I'm always shocked by how totally normal they look. They look like my Uncle Frank, usually."
Reichs mulled over those experiences for about seven years before deciding to apply her ideas to fiction. Out came Deja Dead in 1997, introducing mystery fans to a new but, more likely than not, recognizable heroine: forensics expert Temperance Brennan, a fortyish, recovering alcoholic on the run from a wobbling marriage. Brennan—a sort of mix between Nancy Drew and Quincy—is also something of a hothead, prone to marching off on her own when she runs afoul of a sexist male cop. This is the kind of woman who would sit down to brunch with Vic Warshawski, Kay Scarpetta, or Jane Tennison, if any of them did brunch.
As a forensic anthropologist for the state of North Carolina, as well as the province of Quebec, Reichs draws heavily from her own experiences standing over the autopsy table. Her novels —Death du Jour, Deadly Decisions, Grave Secrets and the like—are packed with the kind of well informed clinical details that make critics take notice. "The doctor clearly knows a hawk from a handsaw," wrote the New York Times about one of her books.
She also built some parallels to her own biography when creating Tempe Brennan. Both women are forensic anthropologists with the unlikely dual addresses of North Carolina and Canada. But Reichs rolls her eyes when asked about the comparisons. "Personally, she's completely her own person," Reichs told USA Today in 1997. "She gets physically involved. She takes risks I've never been tempted to take."
Reichs was editing forensics textbooks when she began toying with writing a novel. The initial result, she said, was a dud: slow, boring, and in the third person. But it picked up steam when she came up with the Brennan character. Inspired by friend and medical examiner Bill Maples, author of Dead Men Do Tell Tales, she sat down to write, meticulously drafting an outline of her story and getting up early to write before teaching classes at the University of North Carolina. It took her two years.
The effort paid off when her manuscript made the rounds of the Frankfurt Book Fair. A heated auction won Reichs a million-dollar, two-book deal.
Critics and readers alike loved Tempe. Wrote Library Journal, "Despite her ability to work among fetid, putrefying smells that 'leap out and grab' and her 'go-to-hell attitude' with seasoned cops, Tempe is as vulnerable as a soft Carolina morning." And People magazine said, "Reichs not only serves up a delicious plot, she also brings a new recipe to hard-boiled cop talk."
Over chicken salad lunches with newspaper reporters, Reichs will casually talk about dismembered bodies, maggots, and concerns for her children's security in light of some of the unsavory characters she'd testified against. But then she'll confess her true idea of a waking nightmare. "[My] idea of horror would be to sit in a little gray office all day and add up columns of numbers," she told USA Today. "I say to people, 'How do you do that?"'
Extras
• When she was a child, Reichs loved both the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries, as well as books about such far-flung places as Easter Island.
• One of the reasons she is Québec's forensics anthropologist is because she is one of the few in the profession who is fluent in French.
• Among her favorite books are the science fiction series the Hitchhiker's Guide by Douglas Adams. "It's one of the few things I re-read because it's just nothing to do with anything I do," she has said.
• She avoided college literature courses to concentrate on science.
• In 2005, Fox TV launched Bones, a forensics/police procedural inspired by Reichs's life and writing. In a neat twist, the main character, Temperance Brennan, is a forensic anthropologist who, as a sideline, writes thrillers about a fictional anthropologist named Kathy Reichs!
• Kathy's daughter, Kerry Reichs, made her literary debut in 2008 with the romantic comedy The Best Day of Someone Else's Life. ("More" and "Extras" sections from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
A deft hand at balancing the emotional light with the dark, Reichs links the enchanting Evangeline and her Acadian heritage to the unsolved cases of dead and missing girls that have stumped the police for years. And even now, 10 books into the series, Tempe's strung-out affair with Detective-Lieutenant Andrew Ryan still hangs on the tensions that confound lovers in an atmosphere of violent death.
(.) Linda Emons brings the same high level of expertise to Reichs's 10th Temperance Brennan forensic thriller as its author does to the series. Both women understand instinctively that simply rattling off details of DNA matches and other scientific data isn't enough: it's making [readers] believe in the people collecting that data. The cold case of a missing Quebec girl becomes a very personal quest for Brennan when she discovers that the bones in question probably belong to a childhood friend—a figure of fascination and sophistication who suddenly disappeared from Brennan's life at the age of 15. Emons brings both Tempe and her friend Évangéline Landry to vivid life. She's equally good in briefer scenes with Brennan's lover, Ryan, who investigates the dead girl's link to a predator who might still be active. Reichs, who might be the legitimate heiress to Patricia Cornwell's throne, has a winning partnership with Emons.
Publishers Weekly
With crisp prose, well-drawn characters, unflagging attention to detail, and a resonant emotional angle, Reichs' tenth Temperance Brennan mystery featuring the forensic anthropologist finds the forensic anthropologist in top form. This time it's personal, when the skeleton of a young girl evokes memories of a deep, decades-old friendship with10-year-old Evangeline Landry, who sustained 8-year-old Tempe at a time of great personal loss only to disappear several years later. As Tempe works to identify the skeletal remains and cause of death, Detective Andrew Ryan seeks her help with several cases involving missing girls and unidentified bodies, raising the possibility of a serial killer. With her workload overwhelming, Tempe's life starts falling apart: her visiting sister's impulsiveness puts both of them at risk; her long-estranged husband, Pete, announces unsettling plans; and Ryan—the man in her life—makes a difficult personal decision. Reichs deftly provides enough background to make this a successful stand-alone, at the same time advancing relationships between characters for her increasing legion of fans, who won't want to miss this one. —Michele Leber
Library Journal
In her Montreal office, forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan stares down at the old bones on her desk. Are they the bones of an old friend? Temperance Brennan was eight when she met ten-year-old Evangeline Landry, who for the next four years was her closest friend. Both had been lonely girls, strangers in a strange land. Tempe had been transplanted from Chicago to Charlotte, Evangeline from Acadia, Canada. Abruptly, without a trace, Evangeline vanished, but Tempe has never been able to forget her. Thirty years later, a female skeleton is plaguing her with painful questions. How old is old? Was the death violent? Is it absurd to think what she's thinking just because the bones were found in Acadia? Answers are hard to come by, in part because Tempe's plate is piled even higher than usual. Detective Lieutenant Andy Ryan is handling the scary new case of five girls in their late teens to early 20s, three missing, two dead. Have they fallen victim to a serial killer? And of course there's Ryan himself, a lover acting uncomfortably cool. Tempe, beset and brilliant as always, buckles down to find answers, only some of which will be rooted in the death sciences. A bit of a jumble at the end—Reichs is a committed over-plotter—but Tempe is both deeper and funnier than she's ever been, making this her best outing to date.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for :
1. What makes Temperance believe that the bones on her desk are those of her long-lost friend, Evangeline Landry? What clues indicate Evangeline may be a victim of a serial killer?
2. What was the relationship between Temperance and Evangeline? What was Evangeline like, and why did Tempe never attempt to search for her? What do you make of Obeline? What role do the poems found by Obeline's bed play?
3. Compare the two forensics experts, Temperance and Linda Emons. In what way are their styles similar or dissimilar?
4. In your opinion, is the world of forensic pathology that Reichs paints in her books overly scientific and detailed? Or do you find it enlightening and fascinating? In other words, how do you experience the technical aspects of the book? Does Reichs do a good job of incorporating her profession into her fiction?
5. What clues lead Temperance to uncover the child pornography ring? Discuss the ring and the people who run it. How does the ring operate? How real is this sort activity in actual life?
6. Talk about Tempe and Detective Ryan and the stresses on their relationship—those that are ordinary stresses found in any relationship, as well as those that come with being surrounded by violent death.
7. Are you satisfied with how Reichs's book ends? Or would you have preferred another ending?
8. Have you read other Temperance Brennan mysteries...or have you watched , the TV series based on the books? How do you compare this book to either the show or other books in the series?