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Spider Bones
(Temperance Brennan #13)
by
Kathy Reichs—#1 New York Times bestselling author and producer of the FOX television hit Bones—returns with the thirteenth riveting novel featuring forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan.
John Lowery was declared dead in 1968—the victim of a Huey crash in Vietnam, his body buried long ago in North Carolina. Four decades later, Temperance Brennan is called to the ...more
John Lowery was declared dead in 1968—the victim of a Huey crash in Vietnam, his body buried long ago in North Carolina. Four decades later, Temperance Brennan is called to the ...more
Capa comum, 336 pages
Published
January 1st 2014
by Fundamento
(first published August 24th 2010)
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I quite like the Temperance Brennan novels. I've read all of them and so far there's only been 1 that I really didn't enjoy at all, which I think is a pretty good strike rate when there's been 12 of them. Well unfortunately, my toll now stands at 2/13. I didn't get into this book either.
Like Brennan, Reichs herself is a forensic anthropologist and she always claims that she never writes a novel and puts Temperance in a medical situation that she herself hasn't been in personally. She's obviously ...more
Like Brennan, Reichs herself is a forensic anthropologist and she always claims that she never writes a novel and puts Temperance in a medical situation that she herself hasn't been in personally. She's obviously ...more

This is the first Kathy Reichs I've read, and, well, I didn't hate it. (Unlike the Patricia Cornwell I read last year.) But neither am I really grabbed by it. Will I read more? Only time will tell, and whether or not one of my lists coughs up one for me to read. I certainly won't avoid it, but I know there's at least one mystery writer writing forensic anthropology mysteries that my mother likes more. Maybe I'll search him out.
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes ...more
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes ...more

Recently took a short trip and decided to take along Kathy Reichs SPIDER BONES on CD to help alleviate the boredom of a ride across the desert. I came away from the experience vowing never to read or listen to another offering in this series. My dissatisfaction stems from many sources. I will attempt to enumerate just a few.
1. Her relationship with Ryan. The green-eyed monster rears its ugly head every time another woman comes on the scene, in this case Honolulu medical examiner Hadley Perry. ...more
1. Her relationship with Ryan. The green-eyed monster rears its ugly head every time another woman comes on the scene, in this case Honolulu medical examiner Hadley Perry. ...more

I've been a longtime fan of this series (and the show) but I must admit, this newest effort was such a wank job. Uninteresting story with a resolution that was so confusing, I didn't understand what was going on even as it was explained to me.
Reichs strains mightily to get Tempe out of the office and into the line of fire and shoehorns into the narrative 2-3 action scenes that feel forced and are unbelievable. The end, when both Tempe and Ryan's daughters are put in danger, is a series' ...more
Reichs strains mightily to get Tempe out of the office and into the line of fire and shoehorns into the narrative 2-3 action scenes that feel forced and are unbelievable. The end, when both Tempe and Ryan's daughters are put in danger, is a series' ...more

Being a huge fan of the TV series, I really really really want to love the books.
I don't.
I try and I try and I try, but at some point I have to shake my head and move on to something else.
I'm a student at uni and like to read crime novels for light relief between study, assignments and exams. I want something that pushes me to think, but that entertains me at the same time. Somewhere along the line, Reichs fails to achieve this.
I've tried to work out what I don't like and I think it comes down ...more
I don't.
I try and I try and I try, but at some point I have to shake my head and move on to something else.
I'm a student at uni and like to read crime novels for light relief between study, assignments and exams. I want something that pushes me to think, but that entertains me at the same time. Somewhere along the line, Reichs fails to achieve this.
I've tried to work out what I don't like and I think it comes down ...more

The Queen of Unbelievable Coincidences strikes again. Seriously, why has no one with any influence over Kathy Reichs ever sat her down and explained that she can't keep forcing connections between cases that have no business being related? It takes away from an otherwise great series.
In this one, Tempe starts out with a body in Canada, but heads back to the States (NC, of course) when the body is identified as a man who reportedly died during the Vietnam war. Then it's off to Hawaii for some ...more
In this one, Tempe starts out with a body in Canada, but heads back to the States (NC, of course) when the body is identified as a man who reportedly died during the Vietnam war. Then it's off to Hawaii for some ...more

Why read: Love the series
What impressed me: I loved Tempe in Hawaii. I loved her vacationing with her daughter and I loved seeing her work in a new place with a different group of people. I absolutely loved Tempe and Ryan spending time together, with their respective kids, and not having everything be sort of overwhelmed by work as it usually is. The mystery was completely unforeseeable. I thought I had it figured out a couple of times, but was always proven wrong.
What disappointed me: I'm sort ...more
What impressed me: I loved Tempe in Hawaii. I loved her vacationing with her daughter and I loved seeing her work in a new place with a different group of people. I absolutely loved Tempe and Ryan spending time together, with their respective kids, and not having everything be sort of overwhelmed by work as it usually is. The mystery was completely unforeseeable. I thought I had it figured out a couple of times, but was always proven wrong.
What disappointed me: I'm sort ...more

Not a lot happened in this book...
Spider Bones was a pretty quick audio to listen to while at work. In it, Tempe and her daughter go to Hawaii to try to have a vacation. lmfao, yeah.. sure. While there, she is of course working on a murder case. She also invited Ryan and his daughter to come join them.
The duo definitely worked some magic on this case and by the end of the book, it was solved. It also didn't hurt that it was kind of like a family thing as well. Their daughters both had a hand in ...more
Spider Bones was a pretty quick audio to listen to while at work. In it, Tempe and her daughter go to Hawaii to try to have a vacation. lmfao, yeah.. sure. While there, she is of course working on a murder case. She also invited Ryan and his daughter to come join them.
The duo definitely worked some magic on this case and by the end of the book, it was solved. It also didn't hurt that it was kind of like a family thing as well. Their daughters both had a hand in ...more

I'm not sure I can explain the plot of this one. It gets complicated! Basically, a body is found that is identified as John Lowery, but records show he died in Vietnam forty years earlier! Dr Temperance Brennan must exhume the grave that everybody thought was John Lowery and take it to Hawaii for reanalysis, as they are obviously the bones of a different veteran. While in Hawaii, another body is found, which has John Lowery's dog tags on them! Who is who? Tied in with all of this are remains
...more

I quite like the Temperance Brennan novels. I’ve read all of them and so far there had been only 1 that I really didn’t enjoy at all, which I think is a pretty good strike rate when there’s 12 novels to the series. Well unfortunately, my toll now stands at 2/13. I didn’t get into this book either.
Like Brennan, Reichs herself is a forensic anthropologist and she always claims that she never writes a novel and puts Temperance in a medical situation that she herself hasn’t been in personally. She’s ...more
Like Brennan, Reichs herself is a forensic anthropologist and she always claims that she never writes a novel and puts Temperance in a medical situation that she herself hasn’t been in personally. She’s ...more

Jul 13, 2019
Betty BoomBa
rated it
liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
het-crime,
mainstream-thriller
Tempe number 13. Is an OK read. No more. This is also the 13th I've read, and although it is all right, it doesn't have the vigour of the previous 12, not for me anyway.
So many acronyms got bandied about that this time it became a real chore. The plot is complex and the confusion of the plot mirrored that of the reader, and I'm still not sure it was explained well. It's all very well being a clever writer, with a clever plot, but the reader sometimes needs a little more to play catchup.
The Ryan ...more
So many acronyms got bandied about that this time it became a real chore. The plot is complex and the confusion of the plot mirrored that of the reader, and I'm still not sure it was explained well. It's all very well being a clever writer, with a clever plot, but the reader sometimes needs a little more to play catchup.
The Ryan ...more

I started reading the Temperance Brennan books in the year 2000 - this is probably my favourite crime series and it's always great to pick up the next one and immerse myself once again in her world.
This particular one has us going to Hawaii (how I love travelling through the books I read!) to uncover the mystery of bones found in a lake in Canada (Quebec), which belong to a man killed in Vietnam and supposedly buried in North Carolina. It gets even more complicated . . .
This particular one has us going to Hawaii (how I love travelling through the books I read!) to uncover the mystery of bones found in a lake in Canada (Quebec), which belong to a man killed in Vietnam and supposedly buried in North Carolina. It gets even more complicated . . .

To keep this short -
Tempe is back for her thirteenth book and I haven't been so intrigued about the victims for a very long time. It's a good thing to because this book is not full of Tempe's indecision about Ryan "leaving her" (although in my opinion, he gave her a chance to fight in the book before they break it off it is about the victims and their weaknesses that led to a chain reaction 40 years after Vietnam.
Soldiers dead in Vietnam, a body found in Canada and a drug ring in Hawaii all come ...more
Tempe is back for her thirteenth book and I haven't been so intrigued about the victims for a very long time. It's a good thing to because this book is not full of Tempe's indecision about Ryan "leaving her" (although in my opinion, he gave her a chance to fight in the book before they break it off it is about the victims and their weaknesses that led to a chain reaction 40 years after Vietnam.
Soldiers dead in Vietnam, a body found in Canada and a drug ring in Hawaii all come ...more

Jan 26, 2012
juicy brained intellectual
rated it
it was ok
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
do-not-own,
ebooks
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.

What I like about the series is the Montreal setting, where applicable, and the police procedural/forensic stuff. What I thoroughly disliked, enough to stop reading the series, was the way Temperance was always the center of any mystery, going alone into every lair of evildoers, being the motivation behind every nutcase's decision to start killing people...
I am glad I picked up this one. The Hawaii setting was interesting. There was still a lot of her personal life, but, for once, there was ...more
I am glad I picked up this one. The Hawaii setting was interesting. There was still a lot of her personal life, but, for once, there was ...more

I'm a big fan of Kathy Reichs' books, of which Spider Bones is the most recent. In this outing, protagonist Temperance Brennan is asked to bring her forensic anthropology skills to bear when three different sets of remains are identified as belonging to the same man.
Clearly, this is impossible.
Brennan is whisked off to the military's Joint Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Command (JPAC), because the man in question, John Lowery, is cited as having died during the Vietnam war.
Along the way, ...more
Clearly, this is impossible.
Brennan is whisked off to the military's Joint Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Command (JPAC), because the man in question, John Lowery, is cited as having died during the Vietnam war.
Along the way, ...more

Ok I will admit its been some time since I have read a Kathy Reichs book and I had forgotten how twisted and interwound the plot can be - maybe a few years away from her work allowed me to forget this and enjoy the story style all over again - No it is not Bone its something wholly different and to me far more enjoyable for it. I wont comment on the book - if you want to know about it read the blurb as any more and I will give the plot away and that is for people far more eloquent and creative
...more

I have to admit, I've never read a Kathy Reichs book before this one. I'm a devout fan of the TV show "Bones", but once I learned there weren't too many similarities between the two, I just kinda forgot about them. Oh, I was so wrong! I absolutely devoured this in under 24 hours. The case was totally intriguing, and it was such an easy read. I really didn't fee lost at any moment, regardless of what I've missed in previous books. I think I may have to start making her a regular author of mine.
...more

Another fine entry in the Temperance Brennan series. And yay Andrew Ryan is back! I just love him as he cracks me up with his dry one-liners which so lighten the heavy mood. This time they are in Hawaii working on identifying POW/MIAs from Vietnam. I really like how this series blends reality with fiction giving just enough information to make things believable while staying in the story.

This book reminds me of the old carny game of putting a pea under a cup and then moving the cups around while maintaining a distracting chatter. I spotted the "pea" early in the book and spent much of the rest of it wondering why the characters hadn't noticed it, too. Still, it's a good, exciting mystery well-worth a weekend read.

Jan 13, 2014
Mizuki
marked it as to-read
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
detective-novels,
disappointment
DNF at page 40. I didn't read long enough to decide whether this book is good or bad, but I'm bored and I'm not willing to continue.

I have been following this series of books for many years now and have always enjoyed every reading experience. Recently I have revisited them again as my daughter wanted me to buddy read them with her after discovering the television series and then seeing the books in our bookshelves. Even though I explained that the books and TV show are two different entities, she was still determined to read them. So here I am, many books later and enjoying them just as much as I did the first time. I am
...more

This is 13th in the Temperance Brennan series (Bones TV show was based on this series). I say this with every Brennan book and I'll say it again: this series is 1000 times better than the show. I liked the show at first but then, I didn't.
You might know that Brennan is a forensic anthropologist and spends her time between Montreal and North Carolina, doing whatever work is needed for any case that needs her. She's called to a body that was found wrapped in plastic and weighted down with a rock ...more
You might know that Brennan is a forensic anthropologist and spends her time between Montreal and North Carolina, doing whatever work is needed for any case that needs her. She's called to a body that was found wrapped in plastic and weighted down with a rock ...more

I started reading this, expecting to hate it. There wasn’t much I truly enjoyed of the previous couple of books, so I anticipated that my reaction would mirror many of the less enthusiastic reviewers of this story. Maybe it's because I'm a sucker for all things military, and the military angle is so prevalent in this story, but a lot of the things that seemed to drive the unhappiest reviewers crazy, didn’t bother me that much. Acronym overkill – that’s classic military. Sulky, snarky Katy –
...more

Good book. Did not want to put it down.
topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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The Women's Myste...: Spider Bones #13 | 5 | 40 | Sep 14, 2017 09:38AM |
Kathy Reichs is a forensic anthropologist for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, State of North Carolina, and for the Laboratoire des Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Quebec. She is one of only fifty forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology and is on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. A
...more
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“we both know phone inquiries aren’t handled that fast. It’s been only twenty-four hours since Plato Lowery was informed of the situation. He”
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“then flats of marigolds and petunias. Made of sterner stuff, I figured, their sort might survive my regime of horticultural neglect.”
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