206 Bones: A Novel - Softcover

Reichs, Kathy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1439189927 ISBN 13: 9781439189924

Publisher: Scribner Book Company, 2010

Synopsis

There are 206 bones in the human body. And one shattering secret hidden among them. . . .

Cold and alone, bound hands to feet, Tempe Brennan regains consciousness locked in a dark cell--or is she buried alive in a tomb?--and begins to reconstruct the twisted chain of events that led her to this terrifying place. Tempe and Lieutenant Ryan had recently accompanied the remains of a missing heiress from Montreal to the Chicago morgue, and suddenly Tempe is accused of mishandling the autopsy. After an incriminating phone call and another shocking death, Tempe's unseen enemy closes in--even as the corpse of a second, and then a third, elderly woman turns up in the woods of Montreal. Who wants Tempe dead, or at least out of the way, and why? Who would resort to sabotage to destroy the secrets hidden in the bones? Only Tempe can uncover the truth--if she can escape the deadly fate someone has designed for her.

About this title

Review

Temperance Brennan swims to consciousness, queasily aware that her feet are painfully tied to her hands. She finds that she is in an enclosed space, and keeps her fear at bay by remembering what she has been doing recently -- travelling with the body of an heiress to a Chicago morgue. Does this have something to do with her grim predicament? Or is it concerned with a recent phone call, an accusation of abuse of practice in the pathology lab? But the man who could have shed light on this call is dead...

With 206 Bones, we're back in the world of Kathy Reichs' resourceful forensic pathologist Dr Temperance Brennan, and it's territory that crime fiction admirers have come to love.

The relationship between Brennan and her colleague Ryan (with whom she was transporting the dead woman's remains) is as sharply handled as anything in previous Reichs novels, and that's no mean achievement -- the often caustic interaction between Tempe, her friends, relatives and colleagues has been one of the pleasures of the series. Here, the narrative has greater urgency than we’ve seen in some time; Reichs' beleaguered protagonist has to draw together the cases of three murdered women to solve a lethal mystery -- and, what’s more, she has to deal with the possibility of sabotage by a fellow member of her forensic laboratory.

Katy Reichs' debut novel Déjà Dead was as impressive a calling card as any author might aspire to. Reichs' strong-minded heroine was utterly plausible, and her creator subsequently placed her in plots that were as well-engineered as anything in the genre. Needless to say, the unflinching confrontation with the grimmer side of human behavior quickly ensured that Reichs' books were not for the squeamish, but for those with a taste for the strongest variety of crime writing, her books quickly became unmissable. And 206 Bones -- with its dark mysteries involving the bodies of dead women -- is Reichs on top form. -- Barry Forshaw

Review

The science is fascinating, and every minute in the morgue with
Tempe is golden. The New York Times Book Review"

"The science is fascinating, and every minute in the morgue with
Tempe is golden." --The New York Times Book Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1439189927
• ISBN 13: 9781439189924
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 464