Kathy Reichs

This is the first Kathy Reichs book I have read and I can't guarantee it will be my last either. However,  I have to say that its style, like John Grisham's latest effort, The Broker, its style and plot seem to owe a lot to Dan Brown. The storyline revolves around religious icons and religious sects as well as taking us to far flung lands where these is an element of the travelogue built in.

For all that, this is a reasonable story with reasonable characters although I was confused at first because it wasn't at all clear to me whether Tempe Brennan is a man or a woman as she is very androgynous for much of the time. It was only when her boyfriend came along and made clear references to Tempe's femininity that this puzzle was finally solved for me.

I can imagine a lot of non Americans finding this a difficult book to read as much of the dialogue is written in ther vernacular of a small part of the USA: a bit like writing in Tyke or Geordie here in England. There is a trend in British publishing now that means that decidedly American books are not edited for a British audience so we are getting American spellings, grammar and idioms. Not necessarily bad things of themselves except that there are people wandering the UK now who really cannot discriminate between different from (or to) (both acceptable) and different than (not acceptable). There is also would of (not acceptable) instead of would have (acceptable); and so on.

The story centres, not surprisingly, around a bag of bones: sorry, I think that's too irreverent. The story centres around a collection of ancient human bones that may be those of Jesus Christ. We are treated to chicanery as the story as to their provenance unfolds and we are also treated to an historical and biblical exposition as to their provenance too. The chicanery is not entirely credible at all times and as to the history and religious aspects, they sounded fine to me: these are the Dan Brown style aspects, where we learn that if they really are the bones of Christ then how to we explain his having risen to heaven on the third day ... ? Hmm, scary for some!

For those like me who haven't met Tempe Brennan before, she is a forensic anthropologist and although some reviewers of this book say things like, The science is fascinating and every minute in the morgue with Tempe is golden, there is not a lot of science in the book and Tempe spends precious few minutes in a mortuary in this book!

The plot builds pretty well and there is a modicum of suspense in the way that Reichs writes although I got to the stage of smiling at the end of every chapter as there is a definite formulaic cliff hanging final sentence there. For example, at the end of chapter 1: This is the reason Avram Ferris is dead; chapter 2: No one named Kessler was cleardd for that autopsy; chapter 3: I've got to phone the airlines. His voice was so taut it could have moored the Queen Mary. In the meantime, hide that print. I was listening to a dial (sic: should be dialling tone for the UK) tone; chapter 10:  Sorry, Father. Your solitude's about to be busted. When you read the book you'll see what I mean.

Tempe has a cat and a caged bird as pets and the cat's called ... Birdie; but the bird's not called catty or kitty or pussy or anything like it!

Tempe's boyfriend Ryan is a serious policeman and some light relief: he is serious about his work and we assume he is good at his job. Then he says things like this to Tempe, How about lunch with strong liquor, then sex? Well, at least he's direct and Tempe doesn't seem to mind although he is penned as a stereotypical male who thinks about sex every 10 seconds of his waking life!

A lot of that fills in the background and style of what the story contains. As to the plot, the other characters and their development: there are many credible and many incredible things taking place. It's plausible for many of things to happen just as they are described. It's implausible for everyone to survive the car crashes and physical assaults that are thrown at them in books like this. At the end of the story, the bones in question are accidentally destroyed so whether they are the bones of Christ cannot be decided: at least Dan Brown doesn't leave any such thing to chance.

Worth a read but you might find the dialect tough to get to grips with if you've never watched Top Cat more than once!

© Duncan Williamson

22 August 2005

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