Speaking in Bones: A Novel (Temperance Brennan Book 18) by Kathy Reichs (Epub)

Description

No one speaks the language of suspense more brilliantly than Kathy Reichs, author of the acclaimed Temperance Brennan series. In Speaking in Bones, the forensic anthropologist finds herself drawn into a world of dark secrets and dangerous beliefs, where good and evil blur.

Professionally, Temperance Brennan knows exactly what to do—test, analyze, identify. Her personal life is another story. She’s at a loss, wondering how to answer police detective Andrew Ryan’s marriage proposal. But the matter of matrimony takes a backseat when murder rears its head.

Hazel “Lucky” Strike—a strident amateur detective who mines the Internet for cold cases—comes to Brennan with a tape recording of an unknown girl being held prisoner and terrorized. Strike is convinced the voice is that of eighteen-year-old Cora Teague, who went missing more than three years earlier. Strike is also certain that the teenager’s remains are gathering dust in Temperance Brennan’s lab.

Brennan has doubts about working with a self-styled websleuth. But when the evidence seems to add up, Brennan’s next stop is the treacherous backwoods where the chilling recording (and maybe Cora Teague’s bones) were discovered. Her forensic field trip only turns up more disturbing questions—along with gruesome proof of more untimely deaths.

While local legends of eerie nocturnal phenomena and sinister satanic cults abound, it’s a zealous and secretive religious sect that has Brennan spooked and struggling to separate the saints from the sinners. But there’s nothing, including fire and brimstone, that can distract her from digging up the truth and taking down a killer—even as Brennan finds herself in a place where angels fear to tread, devils demand their due, and she may be damned no matter what.

User’s Reviews

Review “Speaking in Bones keeps the suspense high.”—Associated Press “Temperance’s forensic sleuthing uncovers many secrets, along with a blockbuster psychological surprise.”—The Huffington Post –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ I binge read all of these Temperance Brennan books in about 18 days. Yep. I read one book a day, staying up at night sometimes to finish them. Truthfully, they were okay, some better than others. I’m not wild about Temperance. I’m truly not. She’s close to my age and yet, somehow, I seem to have more wisdom. She acts like a kid without any boundaries. I loved the forensic anthropology bits, even the long explanations, because it was like a fun learning experience. But the characterization of Temperance? Not so much. I get why her women friends are few and far between, even her relationships with her sister and her mother. She would be hard to take and I don’t think I could be friends with her either. What person ignores what law enforcement tells them, goes and gets in trouble, has to be rescued and then tells the love of her life she doesn’t want to marry him because she wouldn’t want to be “rescued”. Chick, look. You put yourself in situations where you are either going to die or get rescued.***SPOILER ALERT***I don’t know any person who could endure a torn kneecap, so many noggin conks that she has experienced several concussions and a hair skull fracture, a cheek fracture, a near-death drive over a cliff and a snake bite!!! She has no idea how to fight nor does she carry a gun (in North Carolina, she could, as a citizen!) but she doesn’t like to think of herself as a “damsel in distress”. That’s EXACTLY what she is. And the crushing guilt she feels when she doesn’t return a call…THEN DO IT!For me, I gotta say the series was way better than the books. I only read them because of the series. I was thinking the books would be better. At least, in the series, that Temperance could kick behind and take names! She wasn’t a drag on her partner. I’m glad I’m done and I won’t say don’t read the series because some of the books are excellent. Just not this one. By 18, I was tired of her.

⭐ I’ve read the entire Temperance Brennan series, and was very excited when my sister told me a new book was out. Unfortunately, this one was very disappointing. Usually, I would read the entire novel in a day, staying up late because I hated to put it down. But it took me almost a week to get through this story.The book was slow paced, and it simply didn’t keep my attention. Worse, I actually started disliking the main character. She was judgemental, arrogant and narcissistic.** A bit of a spoiler here**I got so tired of the – ‘there was a message from Ryan. I ignored it.’ or ‘I turned off my ringer so I wouldn’t have to speak to Ryan’. Then there was the wonderful – ‘I need to talk to Ryan. Why isn’t he returning my calls?’Well, duh. The big question for me was why he didn’t tell her to take a hike. I especially loved when she told him the reason she couldn’t commit to him was because he saves her when she’s in trouble. She tells him that she doesn’t need his help. But, she sure as hell needs someone’s help – all the time! I guess that’s okay; just as long as it’s not him. It was ludicrous.There was also a heavy anti-religious bias throughout the book, as well as a general arrogance (yes, I’ve said this before). Just driving into a town she deduces the residents must be religious creeps who have guns. In truth, the people she ends up having to deal with are fanatics. But there is an undercurrent in her thought process where she infers that anyone religious falls into that category, just at a different level.When a doctor tells her what medicine he prescribed for one of the characters (who is a minor), then tells her the father refused his care, and took his daughter off the medicine, she bad mouths the doctor to anyone and everyone who will listen to her. He’s a quack. He shouldn’t have a license. She’s obviously ignorant to the fact that if the patient is a minor, and the parent won’t let her take prescribed medicine or come back to see him, that doctor can’t barge into the home and hold them at gunpoint to make the kid take her pills. Yet, Dr. Brennan seems to forget this little tidbit. She’s too busy bad-mouthing everyone.When her mother falls in love, Temp’s first reaction is to freak out and ask if her mother is taking her pills. Yes, that would be my first reaction too. Because anyone over 50 can’t possibly fall in love. She must be having a mental breakdown of some sort.It seems that Temp is obsessed over ”pills” in this book.I just don’t understand what happened to this author, and why her character is so unlikable in this story. But, almost everything she did rubbed me the wrong way.As for the story itself, the plot kept stumbling over itself. It seemed she was just trying to fill up the pages with useless scenes and dialog on many occasions. Yes, there are some twists to the story, but overall, it wasn’t satisfying.Will I read the next book in the series if there is one? Certainly. I’ve always enjoyed the series before this particular novel. And, unfortunately, it seems that when an author writes a series there is always that *one* book that doesn’t measure up. It’s the one you’ll skip over if you ever decide to reread the series at a later date. I’m hopeful this was just that *one* book, and Kathy Reichs will be back on track next time.

⭐ It’s always good to spend more time with Tempe, Skinny and Ryan. In this book, Kathy allows us to do that with a few more characters tossed in. The main plot seems to suffer, though from not having enough Skinny and Ryan involved. Tempe is pretty much on her own throughout much of the book and seems to spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing over her taxes and her relationship with Ryan.This book appears to be transitional in nature. We can feel the universe shifting just a little bit as she avoids two of the mainstays in her investigational life to spend time with a deputy from another county. The story suffers from a distinct lack of clues and/or factual evidence and an abundance of introspection and gut feeling speculation about what happened.I am hoping that the next novel in the series takes us to that new plane and the stories get more compelling.

⭐ But perhaps it was fairly good, only because it followed ‘Bones Never Lie’, which I found extremely tedious to read, with its only positive quality being that it was very irritating – if being very irritating is a positive quality that is.It starts off very well, and moves along at a fair pace to its end, so it’s a reasonable. A little too much backstory though. And why does Temperance Brennan persist in making obvious life threatening decisions, as she did in many of the previous novels, in this case twice in rapid succession?

⭐ Ms. Reichs books appeal to my basic nerdiness in a really good way. I am an investigator (not criminal – insurance) and I really need at least some books written by people who are used to thinking about things and analyzing them, and who have detailed and specialized knowledge of a subject. I love my more emotional writers as well, don’t get me wrong, but I really NEED some quantity of the more analytical type of writer. It is literally a relief to me to read Ms. Reich’s books after some of the other books I read (and I have different reasons for enjoying those).I guess there is always some compromise (when writing a novel) over how life actually goes, and there seems to be an unwritten (or maybe it is actually written somewhere) that the protagonist has to get themselves in danger and nearly die in every mystery. I actually hate this, but I understand that there must be a marketing reason for this, and I admit that I am not ever anyone’s demographic for marketing because I am not close enough to the “norm” for advertising to the masses. However, this “dire danger” problem is usually resolved in a novel by having the protagonist do something either downright stupid or something even the reader would know better than to do, thus involving themselves in a very dangerous situation from which they have to extract themselves or be extracted. This just pisses me off.As you can probably guess, I enjoy non-fiction books which involve mystery and investigation, though not typically murder investigations. Also, I am one of the few (I think) that DO NOT require a murder to take place in a Mystery novel in order to enjoy it. It just seems like there is only one way Americans do Mysteries and that is with murder involved. Okay, whatever. I live here, I don’t make the rules. I just pick what I like or love out of what is available, and keep looking, like any consumer.Ms. Reich’s books do involve some of this “dire danger” sort of thing, and as noted above, I am pretty sure she is required to include this (or perhaps she does it because most people besides me do like it). However her books usually have less of the really stupid actions by the protagonist than some other books I have read, and she makes an effort to make her protagonist get into dire danger more by chance than the weak plot twist of having the character do something incredibly stupid and out of character just so you can get them in danger. So bless her for that effort!And I do enjoy it when her character suddenly realizes she has not asked the right question, or needs to look at something from a different angle. In my personal experience, this is something which is very helpful in unravelling a mystery or other problem in life.I think Ms. Reich keeps her books interesting, entertaining, suspenseful without too much suspense, involves human foibles in characterization and plot as necessary but not too often, and does the best she can to keep in line with the “protagonist must be endangered” rule while trying to keep it as rational as possible. Kudos to her for making the effort! Frankly, I can see it must be hard, especially for someone of her background, to get the plot where you want/need it to go without the “dire danger” being too much of a stretch. I really do get it that readers of novels might want this spicy element of danger. I can’t help it that I don’t. I know how a real investigation can go, having done some or participated in some myself. I found that process very interesting and in fact fascinating, but it does not always or even frequently involve much personal danger unless you are investigating gang murders or something similar. And I know it probably seems boring to some people.I particularly enjoyed most of this book, more even than I enjoyed her last book. It really was only near the end when the “dire danger” situation starts up that I began to get a little irritated. But in this book, the irritation was minimal.My best estimation is that if you generally like Ms. Reichs’ books, as I do, then you will love this one! I’ve tried to give you some understanding of my personal viewpoint so that you will understand why I feel the way I do about her books. Because you CAN use all reviews, even negative or partly negative reviews, to help yourself understand if you might like something or not. So if you understand my viewpoint, it may help you understand if this is a book you will like.Ms. Reichs is right up there in my 10 top favorite authors. Since I have read at least 8400 books in my life so far (14 per week for 3 years and average of 3 per week for 40 years, not including quite a bit of reading from 6 to 13 years of age prior to the 14/week), I think that is saying something!

⭐ Well,the good news is that Kathy Reich’s “Keep you reading” style plots have not gone “bone dry.” Her latest, “Speaking of Bones,” is another winner. Temperance Brennan finds herself in a missing persons search involving the discovery of bones that may or may not match the missing person,assisted by an amateur “searcher” by the name of “Lucky Strike,” The hills and streams of North Carolina provide the setting for an intricate plot that involves a breakaway Catholic/Fundamentalist Church, parents who insist the missing person is not “missing,” rather a runaway — and lots of bones.Meanwhile, Brennan’s personal life takes on added stress as her Canadian former love, Andrew Ryan, is anxious to again pursue marriage and Temperance’s mother also unveils a suitor for her hand. A new man enters Temperance’s life in the person of Avery County Deputy Sheriff Zeb Ramsey. They form an effective partnership as they search the Carolina countryside for clues. Detective Skinny Slidell gets involved and provides an essential key to solving the mystery of who did what to whom. (Seriously!)Some readers have complained that the denouement at the end is a little too “slick.” I disagree. Reich can tie up loose ends however she wishes and this “wrap-up” provides an interesting setting and team approach for future Brennan adventures.

⭐ Hi, I am sorry I can not write long reviews. I have a brain injury but I love all of the Bones books. I have read them all. They grab me within the first couple of pages and they keep me up at night. I can’t put them down. They keep you wondering what will happen next. She has to learn about all kinds of animals as well as deal with 2 cops. Each has their own place and each has a special place in Tempe’s life. Read them all, I don’t think you will be disappointed.

⭐ The latest entry in the long-running Temperance Brennan series was a pleasant surprise for me. I had been moaning and groaning about the series getting tired, but this novel has a plot that kept me turning the pages, and that’s what a mystery novel is supposed to do. The story starts out with the appearance of a “web sleuth” — one of a band of internet crime aficionados, who try to solve unsolved crimes, locate missing persons, and so on and so forth. The web sleuth wants Tempe’s help in finding out what happened to a missing girl. Tempe, of course, joins in, and the search leads to mysterious byways (physical and psychological) and of course to more murders. And Tempe’s personal life keeps on ticking through all of this: suffice it to say that Ryan is back in the picture. After reading this I realized that the plot reached Scandinavian levels of bizarre motivation and improbable events, but what the hey, I love Scandinavian mysteries too.

⭐ Caught between a loose collection of bones, fear of a relationship with Ryan (still in Montreal, Tempe in Charlotte, NC), a religious zealot, websleuths, mom still vacillating (seems bipolar), an unusual story emerges. All the pieces don’t come together until the end in an unexpected twist. Tempe rushes in to danger, of course. And even gets a compliment from Slidell at the end!

⭐ Speaking in Bones by Kathy Reichs. What a new thriller! Reichs has really brought out the who of who’s in her newest novel. Thrilling is to say the least! Temperance Brenan is completely out of her mind? What is she doing going off alone into a strange place with strange people? Hazel “Lucky” Strike goes to Temp with the idea that a man who is no longer a priest is still holding mass in a small little place in the mountains. Strike believes that this priest has murdered people of his so called parish because the are full of evil! Both Ryan, a police detective from Canada, and the local police detective, Skinny Slidell, tell her there is not enough evidence for any kind of search warrant. Ryan? Why is he involved with this investigation? I’m not going to tell you. You must read this book for it is full of surprises in the end. If you have been following this great series of Temp Brenan, anthropologist, you know just exactly what I mean. Once again, a very surprising ending? Rated PG. Some strong language no sexual content. DP, Castro Valley, CA.

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