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.

Speaking In Bones

The Bone Ranger

Speaking In Bones
by Kathy Reichs
William Heinemann Press
ISBN: 978-0434021192

Warning: Some slight spoilers.

Okay. So due to the same strange twist of fate that meant my annual ritual of starting the new Patricia Cornwell book on Christmas day got delayed, so too was my second annual Christmas routine of reading the latest Kathy Reichs book a couple of days later also put on hold. So this year, this was actually the fourth book I’ve read since Christmas.

It’s the 18th of the official canon of Temperence Brennan novels featuring the character as she appears in this original series... not including any other Tempe Brennan books based on the TV series Bones, of course, which I can’t get on with myself. She’s just not the same Temperence Brennan in the show and seems at odds with the character Reichs has been bringing to life in this series of books over the decades. That being said, Reichs sure makes no bones about placing that TV show into these books as being something her main character watches. She does it again in this one, at least twice... metatextually promoting the show based on her to bring unsuspecting souls into the fold, so to speak.

Once again, Speaking In Bones proves to be a solid and almost un-put-down-able thriller in the series... this one kick starting from an amateur investigator, ‘Lucky’ Strike, who puts Tempe on the trail of a series of murders that have gone unnoticed over the years. It’s here that I first found out that there’s a whole on-line community of amateur investigators going after missing people, investigating cold cases in their spare time and, of course, Brennan’s research into this whole community takes the form of an expository monologue. This brings us readers up to speed a little about this on-line phenomenon which, frankly, I should have probably figured out was already there in the background myself. I just never really considered the idea.

This story teams Tempe up with a new character who helps her in her investigation and, after Lucky Strike soon proves to be not so lucky after all, she continues with her new ally, and often by herself, at the usual breakneck pace of all her books until we get to the end game. Of course, one of the ways the writer achieves this is to employ her customary ‘revelations’ or mini cliffhangers at the end of pretty much every chapter... once you read the last sentence you really don’t want to leave the story for any other occupation you might need to do... like fitting precious sleep into your schedule. You always want to know just what has just happened. To be fair, it’s a technique employed by a lot of writers over the years and I’m not complaining anymore. Reichs is so darn good about the way she throws these little moments in at the end of most of the chapters that it certainly does the trick and takes your time hostage. Unfortunately, that also means you finish the books quicker but... what the heck... there’s always the next year.

One of the niggling aspects of this series is that one of the more popular, regular characters in the books, Andrew Ryan, has been existing in a soap opera state of “is it on again or isn’t it?” romantic involvement with the lead character for a number of years now and... it’s getting pretty darned tiresome. Lovers of this character and his exuberant humour should be warned that the character is really not in this one all that much and that Reichs continues to milk the questionable state of play of the Tempe and Ryan’s romance for all it’s worth in terms of the angst of the main character... not to mention bringing her slowly dying mum back into the story after her involvement with some of the her daughter’s recent past cases. Readers may also like to know that there is, indeed, some progress for Tempe and Ryan by the very end of the book. It’s a little more than the usual impasses although, to be fair, I think the way it’s been left still means that the ‘not quite tempe-stuous’ relationship between the two can still be pretty easily milked as a background element in the lead character’s thoughts.

Actually, one of the reasons she gives to Ryan halfway through the book as to why she’s taking so long to chew over his troublesome marriage proposal is something which almost makes my blood boil. Apparently Ryan is being accused of dashing in to the rescue too often rather than allowing Temperance to exist without that ‘damsel in distress’ element to her character but, frankly, that makes no sense whatsoever to me. I understand that maybe certain factions in the so called ‘battle of the sexes’ might well see this negation of that attitude as something to be celebrated as a call to independence and, if that’s the case, then I’m all for that. However, if you’ve been reading along with her for these adventures since she started writing them annually with Déjà Dead in 1997, you’ll know that quite a lot of the time when Ryan rushes in (pretty much all the times he does this, if I’m not much mistaken) it’s to save her from certain death at the hands of some serial killer or other. Now I don’t know why you’d turn down somebody’s help when they’ve saved your life from painful death on a number of occasions but, I for one, would welcome those kinds of attentions when I needed them. So that kind of hit a false note with me in terms of the characters in this one. Temperance Brennan isn’t exactly dumb.

One other thing which threw me a bit is the lack of appropriate guilt Brennan feels towards one of the characters in the earlier parts of the novel. It’s almost like she’s somehow become a little dehumanised because of the field of work she is in... certainly understandable when you are a forensic anthropologist specialising in bones and you end up involved in the investigations but... I wonder if this was an experienced part of the author’s personality seeping through into the text (who I believe works in the same field when she isn’t busy writing these novels). I also wonder if it’s a conscious decision to depersonalise her involvement with people a little or whether it just slipped in there accidentally as part and parcel of the writer’s psyche. Maybe I’m being a little over sensitive to a particular incident in the novel but it did seem to make the character less realistic for me in certain parts, it has to be said.

Those really are the only moans I had about this one, though. Speaking In Bones is another smallish chamber piece of a novel, rather than an epic orchestra sized skirmish which the character can, surprisingly, sometimes get involved in. It’s not one of the stories with a larger, global canvass but, like all the novels in this series, lives are lost and threatened and everything is a race against time before the killer strikes again. Okay, it’s not quite that formulaic in this one but it hits similar notes... which is just as well really, if you’re writing a crime thriller of the high calibre of these ones. Another great chapter in the life of Dr. Temperance Brennan which Reichs’ regular readers and fans, like myself, are bound to lap up. Looking forward to the next one, for sure.

Bones Never Lie

Anique Roadshow

Bones Never Lie
by Kathy Reichs
William Heinemann Publishing
ISBN: 978-0434021178

Anique Pomerlau was her name.

And she was one of the few.

One of the ones who got away and escaped both justice and the clutches of Kathy Reichs’ bone expert extraordinaire and heroine of, now, seventeen original books, Dr. Temperance Brennan. However... there are more bodies turning up with the same MO and Brennan and her regular co-stars are hot on the trail of the killer... or as least as hot as they can be with various cold case murders committed around a year apart. Is Pomerlau back?

And so the questions started pouring in on the second of my annual Christmas holiday rituals... the reading of the latest Tempe Brennan novel.

Now, you have to understand that this is not the same Temperance Brennan as she appears on the TV show Bones. That Temperance, riding the coat tails of this successful series of novels by Kathy Reichs, is based on both a younger version of the character in these books and, also, the real life Reichs herself. I am sure, as I know from reading these novels pretty much every year since I first discovered them (a few years after I started reading Patricia Cornwell’s Scarpetta series), that Reichs is a fantastic person but, it has to be said, I really couldn’t get on with the incarnation of her in Bones and, based on the few episodes I did see of the TV show, I’ve stayed away from that particular modern TV phenomenon since. It seems to me such a watered down version of both the events and regular cast of characters found in the series of books.

There’s a reference to the TV show late in the novel and, I have to say, at first glance I thought it might be a way of the writer distancing the character in the books from the one in the TV show. That is, however, unfortunately offset by the full page advert for the DVDs of the show in the back of the book so... any recognition of the art of breaking the fourth wall and the metatextual world of fiction, got blown away by it being just another form of selling the brand, as far as I’m concerned. Maybe I’m being cynical... I don’t know.

That being said, and I may have mentioned this before (I can’t remember), Reichs seems to have gone through a bit of a bad patch... at least in terms of the stories she is telling about Tempe these days. They really are quite predictable and it makes me wonder if Reichs’ involvement with the inner workings of the Bones TV show has rubbed off on her the wrong way and maybe dumbed down the story content somewhat. There’s a twist, for example, about two thirds of the way through this novel and, frankly, I saw it coming as soon as a specific character other than Pomerlau, from the earlier Temperance Brennan novel Monday Mourning, which this is a sequel to, was first mentioned in the text.

Unfortunately, and I curse my brain often for working like this, I know that as soon as I’m onto what might be the answer to the specific mystery in a given novel, a writer is going to start throwing in as many red herrings as she can and begin playing a misdirection game with the reader as soon as she or he has planted all the threads leading to the actual solution in the text. Kathy Reichs, at this point in her brilliant career, is no exception to the rule and, once a certain piece of evidence came in which put all the characters in the book onto a specific type of search, I was pretty sure something was going to come up at some point towards the end to bring that evidence in question. It didn’t hurt that I read something in December about the specifics of genre and sex, in a book called The Psychology Of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (review coming soon), that allowed me to keep an open mind about things. So there’s that.

The other slightly irritating thing about this novel is that my analogy of modern writers of genre characters being the 21st Century equivalent of the old pulp writers of the 1920s and 1930s is more than maintained, still, by Reichs formulaic chapter endings... every one of which ends on a mini cliff hanger of a statement designed to have you guzzling down the next chapter as soon as possible. Yeah, okay, there’s a strong case to be made that this is a very good writing trick, and it certainly worked for writers like Lester Dent (aka Kenneth Robeson) in their day, but the fact that Reichs does it pretty much every chapter but with less of a dramatic event happening at these specific places... does get a bit much after a while. For instance, the first five chapters end with the following little jabs...

“Read a name. Felt the flutter of adrenalin hitting my gut.”

“We want you to find him.”

“The voice blindsided my overwrought, over medicated brain.”

“Mama couldn’t be dying. Yet Luna Finch said it was so.”

“Slapping colones on the table, I bolted for the door.”

And so on, throughout every chapter of the book. The technique does its job, I guess, but since I became conscious she started doing this, a fair few books ago, it’s kind of become a bit of a cliché for me.

However, there’s a lot to recommend in the latest Tempe novel too...

Her regular cast of characters return with her and the dialogue, something Reichs always has an imaginative ear for, is first class... sometimes reaching 1930s screwball comedy levels of wit and irony. Regular readers may like to know that Tempe’s main romantic interest, Detective Andrew Ryan, is back in the novels... although he’s not the Ryan you used to know... at least not at the start of the novel. Actually, the character development with Ryan starts off fine in this book but, I have to say, it felt somewhat clumsy at the end. As though the choices Ryan makes about returning from his “drop out lifestyle”, inspired by the death of his daughter in the last novel, are somewhat quick and easy. I guess, what with the narrative being the usual first person from Temperance Brennan herself, we aren’t able to get inside Ryan’s head like we would like but, honestly, I would preffered just a little more detail and a little bit more cat and mouse with the character, I think. It seems, for a lot of the novel, that there isn’t that much work for Tempe to do in relation to mending the hardened, almost broken man that Ryan has become and it’s almost a shame that the character sub plot was overshadowed by the main mystery in this one... but maybe that part of the story isn’t finished just yet. I guess I’ll find out next December.

For all my criticisms and the fact that I don’t think this particular Reichs novel is in any way a shadow of her early work, I have to admit the book is damned entertaining and, if you can focus less on the things I’ve grumbled about here, you should find yourself with an easy read and a thrilling ride if you choose to find out the truth behind the old saying, Bones Never Lie. Fans of the character would obviously welcome the return to themes and characters from an earlier book but, similarly, it doesn’t make this one the best jumping on point if you’re unfamiliar with the previous novels. One thing is for sure though... this book is as gripping as a crazy eyed arm wrestler and if Kathy Reichs is, like she is for me, one of your favourite modern writers, then you won’t want to be missing out on this one. Who knows... it could be bringing up important stuff for future novels to come.

Flash & Bones

Even Temperanced


Flash And Bones by Kathy Reichs
Random House. ISBN: 9780434015344

Flash And Bones is the 14th novel in Kathy Reichs extremely popular Temperance Brennan (forensic anthropologist) series. Now, I’ve seen a lot of negative reviews on this one with people saying the quality of the writing is going downhill fast of late but I don’t think that’s necessarily the problem here.

Certainly, everyone can go through a bad patch and I remember the other writer I read of these... well, I refer to them by what they are, modern detective pulp fiction... Patricia Cornwell, went through a very bad patch, in my opinion, some years ago where she had quite a few books out that seemed, somehow, much less on-the-ball than I expected from her. And now she’s out of that slump and her Scarpetta novels are as sharp as they ever were, once more. Perhaps that’s what’s happening with Reichs here or... well perhaps not. I’m not swayed so easily by popular opinion.

I sailed through this one, like I always do with Reichs’ novels and I’d have to say that while I didn’t enjoy the conclusion of this novel quite as much as I would have hoped for, it still holds up as an exciting read. Just a touch different than usual because almost all of her regular characters are mostly absent from the book. Her complicated romantic life as personified by Andrew Ryan is mostly left out here and the character only has one phone call in this novel as far as I can remember. Her ex-husband features more but only in the context of Temperance being constantly badgered and irritated by his new fiancee to help with the wedding plans. I can’t remember having met her before so I reckon she’s technically a new character.

The plot seems fairly simplistic, though, and there doesn’t seem to be much to be done to get the case solved. I’m guessing this one was a really difficult novel for Reichs to write, actually, because it’s hard to make something with a run-of-the-mill plot seem so exciting and vibrant but, even without her regular cast of characters (except Tempe’s beloved cat), it’s a tribute to her writing skills that she had me turning the pages to read more.

One of the tricks she uses, which is something a lot of people are doing more of again these days I’ve noticed (including her nearest rival, the aforementioned Cornwell), is to end every chapter on a new cliffhanger... be that a statement that foreshadows things to come or with the revelation of a new piece of information that doesn’t make sense or... well, anything which will make damn sure you want to start that next chapter straight away to find out what’s going on.

This is where my analogy of these kinds of great modern writers being the modern pulp writers of their day comes into its own... and I’ll stress again as I have done before now... I think pulp writers over the years are great literary artists and I don’t use the nomenclature that grew up around being printed on cheap paper stocks in a derogatory manner when it comes to my assessment of their genius and vitality.

Getting back to the chapter endings, this is exactly what a lot of the old pulp writers would do and wriers like Lester Dent (who wrote the bulk of the 180 plus Doc Savage novels under the publisher’s house name Kenneth Robeson) would rigidly adhere to this kind of cliffhanger approach throughout their entire career... albeit in a slightly more extreme example, more often than not. A random sampling of the last lines of, lets say eight, chapters of Flash & Bones will give you a greater understanding of what I’m talking about...

“But that was changing fast.”

“The look on his face told me something was wrong.”

“The goddamn FBI torched our John Doe!”

“When I straightened, the cold steel of a muzzle kissed my left temple.”

“I was about to take a quadruple volley.”

“And couldn’t believe who was walking toward me.”

“And felt the tiny hairs on my neck go upright.”

“The chill spread through my body.”

And so on. Not all of them placing our heroine in mortal peril of her life, to be sure but, given the context of what preceded them, enough to have you reaching for the next chapter in a mad rush. So I’m glad some time honoured traditions are being upheld in modern fiction.

The backdrop to this particular murder investigation is a NASCAR track and the whole story is set around the world of motor racing, something I confess to knowing nothing about. Tempe solves this one by partnering up with two different men, one cop and one ex-cop, at various points in the story and although the prose is as sparkling as ever, I did miss Andy Ryan’s presence a lot more than I thought I would during the course of the novel. I’m wondering though, after fourteen novels in this series, if she’s just had enough of writing about the same people all the time and doesn’t have anything else remotely interesting to say about them. That’d be my guess anyway.

Another added dimension to this is that you have the FBI actually seeming to be working against Brennan and her boss... although you kinda know that it’s all going to turn out okay in the end. But she milks it deftly and you do wonder at some point if the FBI are not just trying to hide murders they’ve committed themselves. Which I think would have made for an interesting conclusion but... who am I to say.

At the end of the day, Flash And Bones, is certainly not one of the best of the Tempe Brennan novels... in fact I’d say it’s easily my least favourite in the series so far. Still, having said that, I don’t agree with a lot of the naysayers on reviews that this is a badly written book. Maybe the intricacies of the plot are a little stale and obvious but I think that the novel in general is written with a great amount of polish and will have you turning the pages at a lightning pace, as per usual with this writer. If you’re a big fan of Reichs the writer (as opposed to Reichs the TV writer where the Temperance Brennan of Bones is but a pale shadow in every way of the “real” Tempe Brennan in the novels) then you’ll certainly not want to miss out on another solid page turner. If you’ve never experienced her brilliant characters before, though, you’d do a lot better starting off with the first novel in the series and working up from there.