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Review: 206 Bones by Kathy Reichs
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Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan has become a familiar figure to millions through the Fox TV show Bones. Fans of the show have an advantage - they can get a new episode almost every week. For fans that have come to know Tempe through the novels, the wait is a bit longer. Impatient readers got their wish in August 2009 with the publication 206 Bones, the twelth novel in the series.
Instead of the usual linear approach, the story starts in the middle. Brennan has regained consciousness in a small dark area, bound and injured. What happened? The story is told by alternating flashbacks with Tempe's current predicament as she tries to remember what has led her to this place.
As always, Reichs's plot is intricately woven and detailed, but the characters are still the stars. Readers will find themselves attempting to piece together parallel mysteries - a series of murders of elderly women in Quebec, alongside uncharacteristically sloppy work from Tempe's lab. Brennan's professional life is complicated by her personal life, with the addition of the tension in her relationship with Andrew Ryan and well-meant pressure of her ex-husband's family.
For fans that have read the series, 206 Bones is a logical next step in Brennan's story, but the book also works as a stand-alone novel. Fans of the television series that are new to the books will be most surprised at the differences in characters and location, and may find themselves at a loss to reconcile the two, since Tempe is the only common denominator. (A question that also has occurred to many fans of the books.) The curious should check out the afterword for the answer to that, and many other questions.
The Temperance Brennan series
- Deja Dead (1997)
- Death du Jour (1999)
- Deadly Decisions (2000)
- Fatal Voyage (2001)
- Grave Secrets (2002)
- Bare Bones (2003)
- Monday Mourning (2004)
- Cross Bones (2005)
- Break No Bones (2006)
- Bones to Ashes (2007)
- Devil Bones (2008)
- 206 Bones (2009)
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