Speaking in Bones

“You have no positive ID on any of the Brown Mountain remains. You have no DNA…..You have no known victim, no primary scene, no weapon, no motive, no witnesses, no legit suspect. You don’t know for sure if Cora Teague is dead. Or even missing”

Speaking in Bones is the eighteenth full-length novel in the Tempe Brennan series by American forensic anthropologist and author, Kathy Reichs. Tempe finds herself intrigued and horrified by the somewhat dubious evidence that Hazel Strike (aka Lucky) presents to convince her that a set of her unidentified remains (UIDs) could belong to a victim of torture. Cora Teague has not been seen since 2011, but her family don’t consider her missing: that claim comes from a poster on the CLUES website going by the handle of OMG; the post attracted Lucky Strike, a dedicated Websleuther with a successful ID attributed to her work.

Against the considered advice of her own colleagues, of Ryan and of the Deputy initially involved in the case, and even against her own better judgement, Tempe heads for the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Multiple visits there uncover further clues to the identity of the UID, but also put Tempe’s life in danger. More bones, some religious fanatics, a well-trained sniffer dog and a few interesting artefacts are encountered. At the same time, Tempe is distracted by her mother, Daisy’s behaviour, and careful consideration of Ryan’s unexpected proposal.

In this instalment, Reichs explores the preserving properties of pine sap, the reason a corpse might be devoid of fingerprints, exorcism, the inadequacies of systems for dealing with Missing Persons and Unidentified remains, and the growing phenomenon of Websleuthing. A fundamentalist splinter group of mainstream religion, a certain rare disease state and mental illness also feature.

If Reichs could just dispense with two minor irritations that seem to be de rigeur for every Tempe Brennan novel, then these books would be pretty much perfect. 1. It’s really not necessary to end so many chapters with a cliff-hanger sentence: these books are page-turners already so there is no need to resort to this sort of gimmick. 2. Just once it would be nice to see Tempe restrain her impatience and not rush headlong into a dangerous situation without backup. After all, she’s an intelligent woman: would she really be this stupid time after time? Nonetheless, this is an excellent read.