Devil Bones

June 9, 2008
Dr. Temperance Brennan’s quest to identify two corpses pits her against citizen vigilantes intent on a witch-hunt in bestseller Reichs’s exciting 11th thriller to feature the forensic anthropologist (after 2007’s Bones to Ashes
). While working in Charlotte, N.C., Brennan investigates remains unearthed during a housing renovation and discovers disturbing clues possibly pointing to voodoo or Santeria. She must determine if the bones, including the skull of a teenage girl, are linked to an unidentified headless torso found in a nearby lake. Intent on using the deaths as the cornerstone of his crusade against immorality, fundamentalist preacher turned politician Boyce Lingo claims that the bodies bear the mark of devil worshippers. With the help of Det. Erskine “Skinny” Slidell, Brennan unearths a tangled web of dirty politics, religious persecution and male prostitution. Reichs, whose work inspired the hit TV series Bones
, once again expertly blends science and complex character development.

October 27, 2008
Linda Emond’s crisp and dry vocal interpretation of Reichs’s Temperance Brennan, crime fiction’s second most popular forensic expert, is on target. The cool approach works fine when the “5'5", feisty and 40-plus” heroine describes stumbling into a dark basement and finding a witches’ brew of pagan artifacts and human and animal remains. It lets Temperance and the listener calmly contemplate her jumbled, alcohol-prone, romantically impaired life. And it helps in sorting out the clues for several gruesome killings that may or may not be connected and may or may not involve what one character describes as a “murderous devil conspiracy.” But even Emond can’t make Reichs’s endless side trips into North Carolina history, geographical key notes and descriptions of the roots of voodoo and the Wicca religion sound anything but academic. Spare us the lectures; there’s more than enough plot without the unnecessary digressions. A Scribner hardcover (Reviews, June 9).