Review of Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs

From New Straits Times --

READ: Darker version of ’Bones’ --

By: Rizal Solomon --
2010/02/19 --

Devil Bones
by Kathy Reichs
416 pages / Simon & Schuster

LET’S get this out of the way — if you’re coming into this novel hoping to find the same Temperance Brennan you get in the hit Bones TV series, you’ve come to the wrong place.

There’s no Special Agent Seeley Booth nor any of her quirky forensics team. What you get here is a totally different character with the same name, also a forensic anthropologist but very little else in common.

Brennan here divides her time between work in North Carolina and working in Montreal for the Laboratoire des Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Quebec. She is divorced and has a daughter named Katy. Her romantic interest in the books is one Detective Andrew Ryan.

What you get is author and Bones producer Kathy Reichs’ meticulous attention to the details of forensic science. Reichs herself has impressive credentials as a forensic anthropologist and academic. The Bones character of the TV series bears more resemblance to her than to the character in the novels.

Devil Bones is the 11th instalment of Reichs’ Brennan novels and the story starts off with the discovery of animal and human skeletal remains in a dingy cellar of a house in Charlotte, North Carolina, that was being renovated. The remains, together with cauldrons and religious artefacts, are arranged in a manner suggesting some ritualistic setting for voodoo or satanic worship. Very soon, the body of a headless teenage boy is found, with a pentagram carved into his torso. News that a satanic occult could be performing human sacrifices sparks panic in Charlotte and a witch hunt ensues.

A practising Wiccan, Asa Finney, becomes the prime suspect, but Brennan and her police counterpart, Erskine Slidell, must dwell deeper when contradictory evidence emerges and all is not what it seems.

The experience and expertise Reichs garnered as a real-life forensic anthropologist shine through the pages with riveting detailing of crime scenes and anatomical science. However, parts of the novel that revolve around Brennan’s life and relationships may not appeal to readers new to the series, particularly since there is a general lack of chemistry between the characters. Stick to the TV series if you want a less darker and more humorous and lighter version.