Bones to Ashes: (Temperance Brennan 10) by Kathy Reichs (MOBI)

Description

A gripping Temperance Brennan novel from world-class forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs, the international no. 1 bestselling crime thriller writer and the inspiration behind the hit TV series Bones.

Dr Temperance Brennan takes on a case that uncovers horrors she could never have predicted.

It is the skeleton of a young girl, no more than fourteen years old – and forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan is struggling to control her emotions.

The coroner is being evasive, insisting the bones are ancient and of no interest. But this doesn’t feel right, and Tempe is convinced that someone is hiding something.

Working on instinct, Tempe takes matters into her own hands. But her work uncovers horrors she could never have predicted, as what started in the lab quickly becomes her most harrowing, and personal, case yet.

User’s Reviews

From Publishers Weekly In bestseller Reichs’s entertaining 10th Temperance Brennan forensic thriller (after Break No Bones), Brennan, her relationship with Det. Andrew Ryan on the rocks, welcomes the distraction of an unidentified New Brunswick skeleton from Québec’s cold case unit. But when the bones are determined to be that of an adolescent girl, Brennan is convinced they belong to her childhood friend, Évangéline Landry, who disappeared at age 15. Now Brennan must come to terms with Évangéline’s possible death, while trying to ignore her feelings for Ryan as they investigate a series of teenage abduction murders that could be tied to the mysterious bones. With her usual blend of cutting-edge forensic science, nail-biting suspense and characters that pop off the page, Reichs, who’s vice president of the American Academy of Forensic Scientists and the producer of Fox’s Bones, has produced another winner in one of the genre’s most satisfying series. (Aug.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Review “Dr. Brennan is rock solid and this book is easily one of the series’ best.” — “The Globe and Mail””Gripping, full of twists and turns.” — “Ottawa Citizen””Tempe is both deeper and funnier than she’s ever been, making this her best outing to date.” — “Kirkus Reviews” –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Booklist With crisp prose, well-drawn characters, unflagging attention to detail, and a resonant emotional angle, Reichs’ tenth Temperance Brennan mystery (after Break No Bones, 2006) featuring the forensic anthropologist finds the forensic anthropologist in top form. This time it’s personal, when the skeleton of a young girl evokes memories of a deep, decades-old friendship with10-year-old Evangeline Landry, who sustained 8-year-old Tempe at a time of great personal loss only to disappear several years later. As Tempe works to identify the skeletal remains and cause of death, Detective Andrew Ryan seeks her help with several cases involving missing girls and unidentified bodies, raising the possibility of a serial killer. With her workload overwhelming, Tempe’s life starts falling apart: her visiting sister’s impulsiveness puts both of them at risk; her long-estranged husband, Pete, announces unsettling plans; and Ryan—the man in her life—makes a difficult personal decision. Reichs deftly provides enough background to make this a successful stand-alone, at the same time advancing relationships between characters for her increasing legion of fans, who won’t want to miss this one. Leber, Michele –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Bones to Ashes 1 BABIES DIE. PEOPLE VANISH. PEOPLE DIE. BABIES vanish. I was hammered early by those truths. Sure, I had a kid’s understanding that mortal life ends. At school, the nuns talked of heaven, purgatory, limbo, and hell. I knew my elders would “pass.” That’s how my family skirted the subject. People passed. Went to be with God. Rested in peace. So I accepted, in some ill-formed way, that earthly life was temporary. Nevertheless, the deaths of my father and baby brother slammed me hard. And Évangéline Landry’s disappearance simply had no explanation. But I jump ahead. It happened like this. As a little girl, I lived on Chicago’s South Side, in the less fashionable outer spiral of a neighborhood called Beverly. Developed as a country retreat for the city’s elite following the Great Fire of 1871, the hood featured wide lawns and large elms, and Irish Catholic clans whose family trees had more branches than the elms. A bit down-at-the-heels then, Beverly would later be gentrified by boomers seeking greenery within proximity of the Loop. A farmhouse by birth, our home predated all its neighbors. Green-shuttered white frame, it had a wraparound porch, an old pump in back, and a garage that once housed horses and cows. My memories of that time and place are happy. In cold weather, neighborhood kids skated on a rink created with garden hoses on an empty lot. Daddy would steady me on my double blades, clean slush from my snowsuit when I took a header. In summer, we played kick ball, tag, or Red Rover in the street. My sister, Harry, and I trapped fireflies in jars with hole-punched lids. During the endless Midwestern winters, countless Brennan aunts and uncles gathered for cards in our eclectically shabby parlor. The routine never varied. After supper, Mama would take small tables from the hall closet, dust the tops, and unfold the legs. Harry would drape the white linen cloths, and I would center the decks, napkins, and peanut bowls. With the arrival of spring, card tables were abandoned for front porch rockers, and conversation replaced canasta and bridge. I didn’t understand much of it. Warren Commission. Gulf of Tonkin. Khrushchev. Kosygin. I didn’t care. The banding together of those bearing my own double helices assured me of well-being, like the rattle of coins in the Beverly Hillbillies bank on my bedroom dresser. The world was predictable, peopled with relatives, teachers, kids like me from households similar to mine. Life was St. Margaret’s school, Brownie Scouts, Mass on Sunday, day camp in summer. Then Kevin died, and my six-year-old universe fragmented into shards of doubt and uncertainty. In my sense of world order, death took the old, great-aunts with gnarled blue veins and translucent skin. Not baby boys with fat red cheeks. I recall little of Kevin’s illness. Less of his funeral. Harry fidgeting in the pew beside me. A spot on my black patent leather shoe. From what? It seemed important to know. I stared at the small gray splotch. Stared away from the reality unfolding around me. The family gathered, of course, voices hushed, faces wooden. Mama’s side came from North Carolina. Neighbors. Parishioners. Men from Daddy’s law firm. Strangers. They stroked my head. Mumbled of heaven and angels. The house overflowed with casseroles and bakery wrapped in tinfoil and plastic. Normally, I loved sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Not for the tuna or egg salad between the bread. For the sheer decadence of that frivolous waste. Not that day. Never since. Funny the things that affect you. Kevin’s death changed more than my view of sandwiches. It altered the whole stage on which I’d lived my life. My mother’s eyes, always kind and often mirthful, were perpetually wrong. Dark-circled and deep in their sockets. My child’s brain was unable to translate her look, other than to sense sadness. Years later I saw a photo of a Kosovo woman, her husband and son lying in makeshift coffins. I felt a spark of recollection. Could I know her? Impossible. Then realization. I was recognizing the same defeat and hopelessness I’d seen in Mama’s gaze. But it wasn’t just Mama’s appearance that changed. She and Daddy no longer shared a pre-supper cocktail, or lingered at the table talking over coffee. They no longer watched television when the dishes were cleared and Harry and I were in our PJs. They’d enjoyed the comedy shows, eyes meeting when Lucy or Gomer did something amusing. Daddy would take Mama’s hand and they’d laugh. All laughter fled when leukemia conquered Kevin. My father also took flight. He didn’t withdraw into quiet self-pity, as Mama eventually did. Michael Terrence Brennan, litigator, connoisseur, and irrepressible bon vivant, withdrew directly into a bottle of good Irish whiskey. Many bottles, actually. I didn’t notice Daddy’s absences at first. Like a pain that builds so gradually you’re unable to pinpoint its origin, I realized one day that Daddy just wasn’t around that much. Dinners without him grew more frequent. His arrival home grew later, until he seemed little more than a phantom presence in my life. Some nights I’d hear unsteady footfalls on the steps, a door banged too hard against a wall. A toilet flushed. Then silence. Or muffled voices from my parents’ bedroom, the cadence conveying accusations and resentment. To this day, a phone ringing after midnight makes me shiver. Perhaps I am an alarmist. Or merely a realist. In my experience, late-night calls never bring good news. There’s been an accident. An arrest. A fight. Mama’s call came a long eighteen months after Kevin’s death. Phones gave honest rings back then. Not polyphonic clips of “Grillz” or “Sukie in the Graveyard.” I awoke at the first resonating peal. Heard a second. A fragment of a third. Then a soft sound, half scream, half moan, then the clunk of a receiver striking wood. Frightened, I pulled the covers up to my eyes. No one came to my bed. There was an accident, Mama said the next day. Daddy’s car was forced off the road. She never spoke of the police report, the blood alcohol level of 0.27. I overheard those details on my own. Eavesdropping is instinctual at age seven. I remember Daddy’s funeral even less than I remember Kevin’s. A bronze coffin topped with a spray of white flowers. Endless eulogies. Muffled crying. Mama supported by two of the aunts. Psychotically green cemetery grass. Mama’s relatives made the trek in even larger numbers this time. Daessees. Lees. Cousins whose names I didn’t remember. More covert listening revealed threads of their plan. Mama must move back home with her children. The summer after Daddy died was one of the hottest in Illinois history, with temperatures holding in the nineties for weeks. Though weather forecasters talked of Lake Michigan’s cooling effect, we were far from the water, blocked by too many buildings and too much cement. No lacustrine breezes for us. In Beverly, we plugged in fans, opened windows, and sweated. Harry and I slept on cots on the screened porch. Through June and into July, Grandma Lee maintained a “return to Dixie” phone campaign. Brennan relatives continued appearing at the house, but solo now, or in sets of two, men with sweat-looped armpits, women in cotton dresses limp on their bodies. Conversation was guarded, Mama nervous and always on the verge of tears. An aunt or uncle would pat her hand. Do what’s best for you and the girls, Daisy. In some child’s way I sensed a new restlessness in these familial calls. A growing impatience that grieving end and life resume. The visits had become vigils, uncomfortable but obligatory because Michael Terrence had been one of their own, and the matter of the widow and the children needed to be settled in proper fashion. Death also wrought change in my own social nexus. Kids I’d known all my life avoided me now. When chance brought us together they’d stare at their feet. Embarrassed? Confused? Fearful of contamination? Most found it easier to stay away. Mama hadn’t enrolled us in day camp, so Harry and I spent the long, steamy days by ourselves. I read her stories. We played board games, choreographed puppet shows, or walked to the Woolworth’s on Ninety-fifth Street for comics and vanilla Cokes. Throughout those weeks, a small pharmacy took shape on Mama’s bedside table. When she was downstairs I’d examine the little vials with their ridged white caps and neatly typed labels. Shake them. Peer through the yellow and brown plastic. The tiny capsules caused something to flutter in my chest. Mama made her decision in mid-July. Or perhaps Grandma Lee made it for her. I listened as she told Daddy’s brothers and sisters. They patted her hand. Perhaps it’s best, they said, sounding, what? Relieved? What does a seven-year-old know of nuance? Gran arrived the same day a sign went up in our yard. In the kaleidoscope of my memory I see her exiting the taxi, an old woman, scarecrow thin, hands knobby and lizard dry. She was fifty-six that summer. Within a week we were packed into the Chrysler Newport that Daddy had purchased before Kevin’s diagnosis. Gran drove. Mama rode shotgun. Harry and I were in back, a midline barrier of crayons and games demarcating territorial boundaries. Two days later we arrived at Gran’s house in Charlotte. Harry and I were given the upstairs bedroom with the green-striped wallpaper. The closet smelled of mothballs and lavender. Harry and I watched Mama hang our dresses on rods. Winter dresses for parties and church. How long are we staying, Mama? We’ll see. The hangers clicked softly. Will we go to school here? We’ll see. At breakfast the next morning Gran asked if we’d like to spend the rest of the summer at the beach. Harry and I gazed at her over our Rice Krispies, shell-shocked by the thundering changes rolling over our lives. ’Course you would, she said. How do you know what I would or wouldn’t like? I thought. You’re not me. She was right, of course. Gran usually was. But that wasn’t the point. Another decision had been made and I was powerless to change it. Two days after hitting Charlotte, our little party again settled itself in the Chrysler, Gran at the wheel. Mama slept, waking only when the whining of our tires announced we were crossing the causeway. Mama’s head rose from the seat back. She didn’t turn to us. Didn’t smile and sing out, “Pawleys Island, here we come!” as she had in happier times. She merely slumped back. Gran patted Mama’s hand, a carbon copy of the gesture employed by the Brennans. “We’re going to be fine,” she cooed, in a drawl identical to that of her daughter. “Trust me, Daisy darlin’. We’re going to be fine.” And fine I was, once I met Évangéline Landry. And for the next four years. Until Évangéline vanished. –This text refers to the paperback edition.

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:

⭐ In this story Kathy Reichs takes us into one facet of Tempie’s life. She recovers the remains of a young girl who brings up the specter of a young girl who was her BFF from when she was a young kid herself. Also it brings to light a part of Canadian history that is hard to understand, The eviction of the French speaking people of the Acadia section of Canada by British soldiers driving them to go to either Europe or to the area around New Orleans giving us the Cajuns of Louisiana.

⭐ I started reading the “Temperance Brennan” books a couple of years ago. I do read other books, too, but I keep coming back to these for an entertaining read. I was going to say “relaxing” but they are not always relaxing. There is definitely some suspense and times when my heart races when it gets a little scary. I enjoy the characters that repeat in the stories. The Kathy Reichs’ description and detail gives the reader such a great picture of each character. I’m a little sad that I’m nearing the latest book in the series. I hope she keeps on writing them!

⭐ I loved the plot in this book. As usual Tempe is always getting herself in trouble. She ends up hurt and then someone comes to the Rescue. I love that her books take place also in Canada. I live in Canada and wish more Authors would write about things in Canada as Kathy has. I was unable to put this book down. It just kept me captivated the whole time.

⭐ This book was a really enjoyable vacation read. I have seen the show but never read another book in this series. it stands alone well. You will be surprised by the differences in the personalities of the characters but they didn’t bother me. It was a much more detailed book than I expected. Instead of a 45 minute / 1 hour tv episode wherein the team solves one murder, this was much more realistic. Several cases of varying urgency are introduced, giving the reader a better mental workout to keep track of which body is which and what storyline you’re in. I really liked it and will read more of these if they are on sale in the kindle-store again, but I’m not running out to the library or bookstore immediately for them. Romance was not the focus of this book, which was a cool change.

⭐ As always, Kathy Reichs creates memorable characters, and a complex plot with many twists and turns to keep you involved and entertained, not to mention her extremely humorous analogies and turn of phrase that justas me laughing out loud! She also always amazes me with her extensive knowledge, so I always learn something new from reading her novels!I look forward to each new novel, as I know I will have an enjoyable read, and developing the ability to try to stop reading at the end of each Chapter, as she always leaves you “hanging”, and just wanting to read one more paragraph once I start reading, and fid it hard t stop!Dr. Charles T Krebs, Cambridge, MA

⭐ Kathy Reichs’s books are always educational. She’s a REAL forensic anthropologist and knows her stuff. She manages to keep the mystery really going in this tome and I found myself not wanting to lay it down. One warning: if you are a fan of the TV show Bones, THIS Temperance Brennan is a very different character from the one on TV. Her personality is different, her circumstances are different, her workplace and her friends are completely different. I wish the TV producers would have chosen a different name for their character, but if you can lay aside your expectations, you will love this Brennan as much as the one on TV.

⭐ The Temperance Brennan books by Kathy Reichs – which led to the series Bones – are a great mix of real science, fun fiction, characters you like (and a few you don’t) and looks at two geographical regions. I’m buying them all for kindle as I can so I can reread the series, as I find them all enjoyable and worth an occasional reread. Some of my favorites!

⭐ Starting with no. 10 wasn’t my idea, but why not? Miss Reich’s creates her tales to stand alone. This book is one of her best to date.

⭐ I’m still a fan. The location for this book is Canada – Montreal and Acadia. I don’t speak French and I do find all the French references and descriptions a bit tedious to wade through. However, I did thoroughly enjoy this glimpse of Tempe’s childhood. The novel has plenty of factual information blended with a plot with lots of twists and surprises. We also get to know sister, Harry, a bit better. Tempe comes close to missing the mark as she tries to distinguish the good guys from the bad and of course, that could be the difference between life and death.

⭐ Bones to Ashes was a strong outing for a 10th book -I think all of us can look back on our childhood and remember one friend that was different from all the rest – the one you confided to, told your dreams to – It was the same for Temperance Brennan – her friend Evangeline – each year the families would summer at the same place – one year, Evangeline was taken away and never heard from again. It still haunts Temperance -Ryan, Tempe’s on/off again love and sexy cop in Canada is working several missing girl cases – one of the skeletons found was of a young girl with weird lesions – the place and timing of the find has Tempe wondering if these bones are her long lost friend, Evangeline. So begins an interesting and sad story into missing children…All the regulars are featured in this book – including Birdie the cat and Charlie the cockatiel who has a bawdy vocabulary – ok I’m a sucker for books with animals -And Ashes is a taut mystery, police procedural and love story -And a fine addition to the Bones series –

Keywords

Free Download Bones to Ashes: (Temperance Brennan 10) in MOBI format
Bones to Ashes: (Temperance Brennan 10) MOBI Free Download
Download Bones to Ashes: (Temperance Brennan 10) 2010 MOBI Free
Bones to Ashes: (Temperance Brennan 10) 2010 MOBI Free Download
Download Bones to Ashes: (Temperance Brennan 10) MOBI
Free Download Ebook Bones to Ashes: (Temperance Brennan 10)