Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Kathy Reichs, Simon & Schuster, $19.99.
It is said: no crime can stay hidden forever. Such is the case in The Bone Code.
Reichs returns with her edge-of-the seat thriller featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A storm has hit South Carolina, dredging up crimes of the past. Brennan receives a call from the Charleston coroner while on the way to Isle of Palms, a barrier island off the South Carolina coast.
It appears that during the storm, a medical waste container has washed up on the beach. Inside are two decomposed bodies wrapped in plastic sheeting and bound with electrical wire. Chillingly, Temperance recognises many details as identical to those of an unsolved case she handled in Quebec 15 years earlier.
With a growing sense of foreboding, she flies to Montreal to gather evidence and convince her boss Pierre LaManch to reopen the cold case. She also seeks the advice — and comfort — of her longtime beau Andrew Ryan.
Shockingly, Temperance eventually discovers that not only are the victims in both grisly murder cases related, but that the murders and the disease outbreak also have a common cause.
Meanwhile, a storm of a different type gathers force in South Carolina. The citizens of Charleston are struck by a bacterium that, at its worst, can eat human flesh. Thousands panic and test themselves for a rare genetic mutation that may have rendered them vulnerable.
The Bone Code provides knowledgeable motivation accessible by the subject matter, and is an enjoyable read into the complex, many-sided cross-border investigation.
While the books and television series Bones differ, common to them both is the straight-talking leading lady: Brennan. She has a scientific passion and persistence, and her matter-of-fact, often dry observations about the human race. The TV series is very loosely based on the life and novels of Kathy Reichs, a forensic anthropologist, crime writer and academic, who also produced the show.
