I have read a number of Kathy Reichs’ books in the past and
I saw this one on sale in a local charity shop for 50p in hard back (apparently
it was 18.99 new – according to the price on the inside of the dust jacket)I
decided it was too good a price not to buy it. Her main character, like Reichs herself,
is a forensic anthropologist (deals with skeletal remains etc) hence the
scientific information as far as the forensics go will be accurate.
Brief plot:
A number of human remains have been found in Montreal and
Temperance Brennan has the job of finding out who they are and how they met
their end – nothing new there but this time things start to go rather off
track. Could Temp really have been that careless and made such big mistakes…..
A new person, Beriel, arrives at the forensics lab. With the
loss of some on Temp's closest allies she isn’t in the mood for new people. As
Briel has done a short course on anthropology she is out to prove she is an
expert in bones – is she after Temp’s job?
Can Temp assist Andrew Ryan and solve the case and watch her
own back at the same time? Something about the case just doesn’t smell right,
and I’m not talking about the body.
What I thought of it:
Now despite reading a number of Riechs’ books I have skipped
a few between the last one I read and this one. This led me to miss a couple of
points which are not important as far as the actual plot goes but did explain a
difference in the way Temp and Ryan worked together. Whilst all her books do
work as a standalone novel there are some running themes through all of them
such as the other people she works with and her relationship with Andrew Ryan
which readers may miss if they start with this one.
The novel in itself is well written in place but the first
few chapters contain parts which seem to be rather disjointed and bare no real
significance in the rest of the story. There also appears to be two rather
different main plots in the novel where one – written in italics – is
interwoven at intervals into the main story. This italics story appears to be a
slight standalone short story within the main novel. However, the main story is
still needed to make this make sense. The way this italics part is written has
the effect of making the rest of the novel a sort of ‘flash back’ to the last
few days prior to it. This is done to a good standard but it can give a bit of
a ‘jumpy’ feel to the novel but I do see that if it was done any other way it
would not have worked at all.
The effects and claustrophobic feeling of where Temp has
found herself in the italics parts has been well written but I do find her
escape from it to have been just a bit too convenient and ‘well timed’ and
frankly so is the existence of where she found herself but I suppose it could
happen.
There are a few twists to the plot in order to keep the
reader interested but I do think more could have been made here. Whilst the
result of who had committed the killings was not exactly unexpected the way
Temp found herself in a dangerous predicament was.
The actual conclusion does work well and it is not just one
of those ‘oh well it’s an ending’ ones which I’m afraid Reichs has done in some
of her other books I have read. The fact it seems to centre a round the fact
that some people will stop at nothing to get what they want and don’t care who
they trample on to get there does work well.
The chapters are fairly short so there are places where you
can, if you want to, put it down for a while. In length my copy is 303 pages.
Whilst it is an enjoyable and fairly light read I would not say it was
unputdownable but there are few books which I do describe in this way.
Conclusion:
Whilst this was a good read I don’t think it is in my top 10
books nor is it my favourite novel by Kathy Reichs. Will I read it again – no
but that is because I tend to remember parts books I have read rather too well.
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