Bones of the Lost

Bones of the Lost is newest book in Kathy Reichs' Temperance Brennan series.  If you have never read the books and only watch the show, you should know that they are nothing a like.  Pretty much the only thing that is the same is the character is Dr. Temperance Brennan and she is an anthropologist.  That being said, I read the books and watch the show, but I just see them as two separate worlds.  The books, for the most part, are more realistic and Dr. Brennan, or Tempe to her friends, is much more normal than Bones from the show.  She is not a socially awkward genius who has no idea how to relate to normal people.

The books begins with Tempe have quite a bad day.  She is called in for jury duty, which is dismissed from for obvious reasons. She loses her bracelet that her daughter, Katy, gave her, and when she goes back to find it, she locks her keys in the car.  In attempting to get into the car, one of the courthouse cops thinks she is trying to break into the car.  She has the cop call her boss, who sends homicide detective "Skinny" Slidell to pick her up.

Back at the lab, she looks at radiographs of a hit and run victim, which appears not to be accidental.  It is a young girl with no id, and possible Latin American in origin.  On top of that, she is looking at a couple of Peruvian mummy dogs that Customs caught someone smuggling into the country.  Despite Tempe's best efforts, the hit and run cases seems to be going nowhere, so as a favor to her almost ex-husband and to see Katy, who is now in the army, she goes to Afghanistan to exam the bones of two local men that a marine is accused of killing.

When she returns to the states, new leads help to find who the Jane Doe is and who killed her and why.  As Tempe gets  closer to the truth, threats are being made, and not to mention her personal life seems to taken some unusual turns.

In general, I love these books.  I love reading the science behind forensic anthropology.  Tempe can be a little reckless at times, possibly thinking too much with her heart and not enough with her head.  For me, this book had a little bit of a far fetched premise when she tied the Afghanistan and North Carolina cases together.  I do like that now I live in North Carolina, that I understand a little better about the places she mentions in the book.  Of course, not living in Charlotte,  I don't know everywhere she talks about.

There was a disturbing lack of Lieutenant Detective Andrew Ryan in this book.  The one chapter he does make an appearance in is super depressing, and I am really questioning the role he will play in the rest of the series.

This book, for me, showed how prevalent and serious human trafficking has become in our world.  It is something that I knew existed, but never really thought about it because my life is not affected by it.  I did not realize how high the numbers were until this book.  Definitely brought to light more social awareness on the situation for me.

This was not my favorite for the Temperance Brennan books, but it is not a bad read.  In case you are wondering my favorite is a toss up between Grave Secrets and Spider Bones.  On a side note, my dog apparently thought since the word bones was written on the book, that he should try and eat it.  Thankfully, only a small corner was chewed and it did not impede my reading at all.

Currently Reading:
After Dead
by Charlaine Harris