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Jerry's Reviews > Cross Bones
Cross Bones (Temperance Brennan, #8)
by Kathy Reichs
by Kathy Reichs
Eighth "bone doc" Tempe Brennan a confusing Da Vinci Code wannabe!
We're fans of the seven prior Tempe Brennan, forensic pathologist, novels. A mirror to Dr. Reichs in real life, Brennan spends most of her time alternating between jobs in Montreal and North Carolina, examining skeletons and bones to determine identity, and manner and cause of death when possible. While sometimes the science drags down the mysteries, most of these stories have been entertaining, suspenseful reads.
In this one, an antiquities dealer is dead and it take's Tempe's skills to determine from the decomposed skull that it was indeed a murder. When a mystery man shows her a photo of a skeleton, claiming it's related to the death, the plot moves along to discover the bones in question, take them back to Israel where they presumably may be Jesus or a member of his family! Working with both boyfriend Ryan (who conveniently gets assigned to chase a bad guy in Israel) and friend Jake Drum, a Biblical scholar and archeologist who thinks he's discovered the tomb of Jesus' family, more funny stuff turns up including a 2000-year-old shroud containing yet more bones that might also be you know who! The plot culminates in a somewhat unsatisfying fashion with the biblical mysteries (of course) unsolved, and the killings per se the deed of a bit player we suspected for quite some time.
We could say more about the tale, but you get the drift. One has to accept a lot of implausible plot developments and wade through several lectures on DNA and Biblical events to make much sense out of all of this. Not surprisingly, the book is long on theory and short on suspense. We do realize it probably took a lot of research to pull off this novel - that much of it is based on another author's upcoming work might have been a subtle promotion attempt. All in all, we felt this was one of the weaker entries in this successful set. Perhaps the author was distracted by the upcoming television series to feature her heroine - between her regular job, the research required for "Cross Bones", and consulting to the TV show, even our competent real life Doc got stretched a little thin. Other than her fan club, readers might well start with the earlier stories as more representative of some good entertainment from author Reichs.
We're fans of the seven prior Tempe Brennan, forensic pathologist, novels. A mirror to Dr. Reichs in real life, Brennan spends most of her time alternating between jobs in Montreal and North Carolina, examining skeletons and bones to determine identity, and manner and cause of death when possible. While sometimes the science drags down the mysteries, most of these stories have been entertaining, suspenseful reads.
In this one, an antiquities dealer is dead and it take's Tempe's skills to determine from the decomposed skull that it was indeed a murder. When a mystery man shows her a photo of a skeleton, claiming it's related to the death, the plot moves along to discover the bones in question, take them back to Israel where they presumably may be Jesus or a member of his family! Working with both boyfriend Ryan (who conveniently gets assigned to chase a bad guy in Israel) and friend Jake Drum, a Biblical scholar and archeologist who thinks he's discovered the tomb of Jesus' family, more funny stuff turns up including a 2000-year-old shroud containing yet more bones that might also be you know who! The plot culminates in a somewhat unsatisfying fashion with the biblical mysteries (of course) unsolved, and the killings per se the deed of a bit player we suspected for quite some time.
We could say more about the tale, but you get the drift. One has to accept a lot of implausible plot developments and wade through several lectures on DNA and Biblical events to make much sense out of all of this. Not surprisingly, the book is long on theory and short on suspense. We do realize it probably took a lot of research to pull off this novel - that much of it is based on another author's upcoming work might have been a subtle promotion attempt. All in all, we felt this was one of the weaker entries in this successful set. Perhaps the author was distracted by the upcoming television series to feature her heroine - between her regular job, the research required for "Cross Bones", and consulting to the TV show, even our competent real life Doc got stretched a little thin. Other than her fan club, readers might well start with the earlier stories as more representative of some good entertainment from author Reichs.
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