Bones to Ashes

Kathy Reichs is something special. Since achieving a secure position in the upper echelons of crime writers, she has refused to rest on her laurels and (with only the occasional misstep) has consolidated her success with a series of novels that subtly finesse the formula that has gleaned her so many readers.

Bones to Ashes is the latest title to add lustre to her reputation. Dr Temperance Brennan is examining the skeleton of a young girl, and finds herself losing the necessary distance she tries to maintain from all the cases she works on. Are the bones deformed or diseased? Or has some post-mortem damage been wrought upon them? Coroner Yves Bradette seems prepared file this information in the Dead Letters Department -- an ancient case, with no current relevance. But (as so often before) Tempe has other ideas, and something is stirring in her synapses -- a mystery involving the disappearance of a childhood friend. Matters are complicated when Detective Andrew Ryan (assigned to an allied case) asks Tempe to help with three missing persons - a trio of unidentified female corpses. Is there a serial killer at work?

There is often a defining moment when the work of a much-loved author imperceptibly becomes over-familiar, and readers have less enthusiasm for their work. Thankfully, on the evidence of Bones to Ashes, that day is quite some time in the future for Kathy Reichs, as all the elements that have made her books so involving are still being polished and refined here. Followers of Temperance Brennan need not hesitate to add this to their collection. --Barry Forshaw

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Writing by numbers - Rated
I read all the Tempe Brennan books but this was disappointing. I solved the case long before she did and found too many similarities with previous stories. For example Temepe gets involved in a case that has nothing to do with her, puts herself in danger and gets knocked out. She must have a very hard head as she gets concussion every novel. It seems to be a way for her to get injured but make a quick recovery so she can stubbornly carry on investigating. Reichs has found a formula that sells and seems to be sticking to it.

brilliant - Rated
I have read all of her books,I discovered them last April while recouperating from a dislocated shoulder, I read the first 9 in as many weeks and the last one in October when my daughter spotted it on the shelves at a well known supermarket. I cant wait until her next one comes out this August. I love the TV series too although its not like her books, even her character Tempe is different but they are both great, I want more. I hope she writes loads more, I'm a complete Kathy Reichs junkie!!

The books are about Temperance Brennan, a Forensic Anthropologist working in Charlotte Carolina USA and Montreal Canada. She investigates the skeletal remains of suspicious deaths and always goes beyond the call of duty and gets herself caught up in the investigations with her Detective boyfriend Andrew Ryan. Most of the time getting into trouble along the way.
She usually gets her man in the end, solves the case, getting saved or bailed out by Andy. A good read.

Slightly better anthropology triller! - Rated
I think I read Kathy Reichs books because I'm a science nerd who likes whodunits, but I'm getting increasingly irritated with her books I'm afraid.

I finished "Bones to Ashes" by Kathy Reichs today. It's about a bone expert (Temperance Brennan) who studies bones to see if she can work out how someone died. Reich's books alternate between Montreal and North Carolina (her character's an expert for both cities) and this book is set in Montreal.

This book focuses on two cases. One focuses on some possibly old bones with weird markings on them (Brennan almost convinces herself they might be the bones of a friend who disappeared when she was 14), the other focuses on dead bodies that turn up in a frozen lake. The bones by some miraculous coincidence turn out to be related to her former friend's brother-in-law.

It's the tenuous connections that allows Brennan to be inserted into cases she shouldn't really play and part in. It is these tenuous connections that have started to irritate me, however. How many times is she going to find a reason to back herself into a case? She's managed to do it in all of Reich's books so far, and I'm inclined to suspect that she's going to carry on doing it until her readers say 'enough.'

Th other thing that has started to irritate me is the fact that Reichs has a tendency to stop and have temporary reminders about the plot at regular intervals during the book. It's almost as if the expects the reader to walk away from the book for a while and come back, where they left off, some time later. The only good thing about this book is that this book does it slightly less than the other Reichs' books I've read.

If you can over look my grumbles, you might like this book. Sadly, however, I can't and so I've probably decided that I won't read any more of Reichs' books for a while.

Ingenious story with lots of forensic details - Rated
I have read all Kathy Reichs' books and enjoyed them all: the earlier ones a bit more than the more recent. I admire her ingenuity in constructing exciting stories and I like the authentic medico-scientific descriptions, in contrast to some other writers whose inaccurate allusions to science and medicine detract from the flow of the narrative. In her previous book, Break No Bones, I felt that the quality of writing had deteriorated with more wise-cracking and mentioning products (a bit like Patricia Cornwell). In Bones to Ashes the author has reverted to her own style of good writing. My quibbles are that I wish her heroine, Temperance Brennan, didn't in a formulaic way in each book get assaulted and act stupidly by blundering into crime scenes: she a forensic scientist, not a detective!

Save the Acknowledgements for Last - Rated
Acknowledgements are sometimes put at the end of novels for a good reason - in case they spoil a plot point. The acknowledgements in this book were at the start. Lucky for the author, I didn't know what a *L-word* was. Just in case your vocabulary is bigger than mine, I suggest you save reading the acknowledgements for last because, indeed, that *L-word* stuff was the most fascinating aspect of this novel. (It's a medical something, by the way.) In non-spoiler news, the novel brings attention to the Acadian people, whom I'd never heard of before. Yay, I learned something! Also featuring are Tempe Brennan's summer childhood friend, her somewhat trashy sister Harry, and a cockatiel who quotes the Black Eyed Peas and Korn. Good times!