She Treads Softly: Cold, Cold Bones

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Cold, Cold Bones

Cold, Cold Bones by Kathy Reichs
7/5/22; 352 pages
Scribner
Temperance Brennan Series #21

Cold, Cold Bones by Kathy Reichs is a highly recommended novel of suspense and the twenty-first in the Temperance (Tempe) Brennan Series.

Forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan is helping her daughter Katy unpack after returning to civilian life from the army. The two meets at Tempe's to eat when they find a box on the back porch containing a human eyeball. What's even more strange is that there are GPS coordinates etched into the eyeball which lead Tempe and Skinny to a Benedictine monastery where the answer to the missing eyeball is found and more questions arise. When a mummified corpse shows up in a state park, Tempe notices a pattern, a pattern that continues in the novel.

Detective Erskine "Skinny" Slidell, now retired but still volunteering with the CMPD cold case unit, is there to help. It seems that someone is killing people in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area in such a way to mimic or reenact Tempe's former cases. There is a copycat killer out there who has a grudge against Tempe, but what is the motive? Things escalate when Katie disappears and Tempe worries that she is a victim of the killer.

With the active copycat killer there are a whole caseload of former investigations presented in the narrative, which makes for a good way to build the tension and suspense in the plot while providing the numerous details about the current and former homicides. Tempe is her usual self with plenty of sarcastic comments and Skinny is the same great detective but dedicated curmudgeon he usually is.

Those who are familiar with the series will appreciate and enjoy this latest installment. The interest here is in the cases themselves and following the clues rather than the motivation of the killer. In fact many readers will likely know who is responsible before it is made clear in the plot. Anyone new to the series can still enjoy Cold, Cold Boness and will find it compelling and entertaining. There is enough background information provided on the characters to keep you interested without feeling as if you are missing some important information.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Scribner via NetGalley.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.