Fire And Bones

In Fire Straits

Fire And Bones
by Kathy Reichs
Simon And Schuster
ISBN 9781398531178

Okay, another one of my very brisk reviews, this time for what has shifted from being my second ritual Christmas read to, over the last few years, my number one August holiday read. I always start the latest of Kathy Reichs’ Temperance Brennan novels on the first day of my holidays, which usually coincides to roughly when they’re published each year.

This latest adventure for the forensic bones lady is entitled Fire And Bones and involves Tempe being brought in as a side effect of a favour she does for her daughter. Her daughter’s ‘loaded’ best friend is a would be reporter and podcaster who interviews a reluctant Tempe for a new case involving arson. The result being that the people in Washington where a fire killed four people want, as a result of watching that interview, Tempe to help out with her expertise in bodies recovered from said fire.

The other side effect of this is that Tempe gains a new ally and, possibly, a new semi-regular character for the series, I hope... as she ends up staying with the lady who interviewed her in her... well it’s pretty much a mansion.

But with a second fire occurring and other fishy things happening, it’s a case of no arson around when Tempe gets on the case.

So this one, without trying to put in any spoilers, leads back to a long standing feud which started during prohibition between some bootleggers and other unsavoury characters of the time. And aided by her new friend, plus her own ingenuity, Tempe seems to be a little ahead of the police at most turns of the investigation on this one. Once again, though, this puts her very much in harms way.

Now, in terms of the mystery, it’s a bit of a jigsaw of suspects and interested parties and, though I didn’t see part of the solution, certainly the follow up attack after all has supposedly been put to bed, didn’t surprise me in the least. There’s a character who is introduced about a third of the way into the novel who I realised, as soon as I found out that character’s profession, was probably involved (or would be) in the various incidents which come to light. So, yeah, the story does telegraph itself to a certain extent, it has to be said.

That doesn’t matter too much to me though, because once again it hurtles along at a fair lick and is never not entertaining and thrilling. There’s a reason I read these at the start of my holidays... they relax me and I know I’m going to tear through it quickly, setting up the tone for my time away from the office. And once again, Reichs doesn’t disappoint.

Now a couple of things of note... the writer seems to be relying less on the hard cliffhanger/foreshadowing allusion at the end of each chapter as she so often has in the past. I mean, there are a couple of last liners in a more familiar style here such as... “We both knew I’d never make that call. We were both wrong.” but, for the most part, the last lines of each chapter are not promising (and often they used to deliver, so I’m not knocking the practice at all) some kind of hard revelation in the chapter to come. Truth be told, I kinda missed them though. I mean, the novel doesn’t suffer from it in any way, it has to be said but, it’s just the kind of writing I’m used to reading from her.

The other thing I should mention in terms of the story is that Andrew Ryan, Tempe’s long suffering boyfriend, spends most of the book away and unmentioned, for reasons I won’t go into here. But I did miss the banter between the two. Obviously, there’s a little of it here but, yeah, it definitely felt like Reichs was trying to change the way she writes these things somewhat... at least that’s what it felt like to me.

One last thing... and the hobgoblin of little minds like mine, perhaps... is the basic brush with the metatextual that rears its head in the text. In once sentence, Reichs... talking as Tempe, the books are always told from a first person point of view... mentioned that someone in the story binge watched all 12 seasons of Bones on television. Now Bones, of course, is a kind of TV universe of a slightly different version of Temperance Brennan, based on her earlier years and perhaps a little more on the writer herself. But these books, which are stories which I can’t help but feel are grounded in a certain reality, are now suggesting that in the world of Temperance Brennan, there’s a TV show top lining a character called Temperance Brennan, from a different viewpoint, so to speak. Which doesn’t quite sit right with me for some reason but, hey, it’s a nice reference either way.

And that’s me about finished with Fire And Bones, I think. If you’re already an avid reader of Kathy Reichs and love this character as much as me then you really can’t go wrong picking this one up. They’re bright, breezy and informative so, you know, if modern thrillers are your thing, give this (and the series in general) a go. Can’t wait for the next one.