Temperance Brennan, the forensic anthropologist and protagonist of numerous novels by Kathy Reichs and now a popular tv series, returns in a terrific new entry, the twelfth in the series. [It should be noted that the title refers to the number of bones in the human body.] Temperance is presently with the coroner’s office in Montreal.
There are a number of mysteries presented from the first pages of the novel. The most immediate of these is that Temperance, as the book opens, is regaining consciousness and becoming aware that she is hog-tied and apparently in some tiny space, with no recollection of how, why, or by whom she has been taken. As she tries to regain some semblance of memory, she reconstructs the last cases she can remember working on, trying to gain some clue as to her situation.
The most personally troubling case had been that of a woman whose death had been ruled an accident, but because of an anonymous tip received by the dead woman’s father [not coincidentally a blue-blood Chicagoan with political connections], who now believes the case, and Temperance’s role in it, had been mishandled, to be more precise, “either botched or deliberately falsified.” In addition, the bodies of three elderly women have turned up, in Canada, and the resulting investigations lead the police, and Temperance, to believe that a serial killer could be responsible for the deaths. The probe takes her variously to Montreal, Quebec and Chicago, the cities where Temperance has worked over the last few decades.
The writing is terrific throughout, e.g., when a head-turning statement is made, “at an observatory high up on Haleakala, an intergalactic monitoring device beeped softly, alerted by a black hole of silence that suddenly popped into being in a Midwestern suburb,” and, speaking of herself, “Southern women are famous for knowing the right things to say. For conjuring words and phrases that put others at ease. It’s a skill I admire but do not possess. That’s being generous. When it comes to small talk, I suck.” Oddly, when watching tv, with the book open on my lap [well, what do you do during commercial breaks??], I found myself both watching and reading about Temperance Brennan [a slightly disorienting experience]. And enjoying both mightily, I might add.
Recommended.
