 2009-01-03 - The devil you know
A skull buried in dirt within a cauldron. A headless corpse in the lake. Forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan is called in by Charlotte police to determine if the murders are related. The signs point to magical medicine - voodoo? Santeria? witchcraft? devil worship? Soon murders of a more prosaic type occur at an alarming rate, and an evangelical city counselor feels duty bound to point fingers and dramatically demand justice.
Reichs puts Tempe through her paces with the passages of forensic information that have become her trade mark. She also spices up her love life, gets her fired, and plunges her into a brief period of despair. All of the criminal pieces ultimately fall into place, but the more personal ones are left in limbo.
Tempe and her mysteries are interesting and informative enough to make readers wonder what's coming up next. Not great, but entertaining, interesting, and competently written.
2008-12-19 - Devil Bones
This is the 11th book in the series about Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist, who divides her time between Charlotte, North Carolina and Montreal, Quebec, Canada. This tale of secret ceremonies and the religious rituals of Wicca, Santeria, Voodooism and Satanism takes place in North Carolina. One part of the story line is about a skull and other artifacts found in a basement in an old house. Was a skull from a victim of sacrifice? A headless body of a young man is also found and his body bears markings of symbols of a religious ritual. This book gets bogged down and is hard reading until the last few chapters when the pace picks up. There are too many anthropological and crime scene details. This is the least readable of all her books so far. Let's hope she gets back on track with the next book in the series.
 2008-12-03 - Disappointing
Just like Patricia Cornwell, Kathy Reichs appears to be faltering and straining to continue producing enjoyable, fascinating books around her character Tempe Brennan. The book starts fine, but than becomes jumbled and full of unnecessary characters to further complicate the picture. We all know Miss Reichs is a high IQ woman, but why make a read so complicated that you wish you had made diagrams so you could truly connect all the dots? I forced myself to finish this book, and realize I began to not care around the last 100 to 150 pages. To many cerebral brain cells needed to fire to keep up with an "enjoyable" reading experience rather than feeling like I was studying for a college test. It is also difficult for me to continue feeling sympathy and empathy for the literary character of Tempe who seems to be a train wreck waiting to happen due to her unprofessional behavior in the book and poor judgment in her personal life.
I guess they will continue to print these, but I'm glad mine came from the library.
2008-11-13 - Not one of her best but...
I have read all of Kathy Reichs novels and can find pleasure in reading one of her books. They are not always a light read but they are still on the entertainment level. I did find the religion angle a new twist to her previous books. Her relationship is not what we all tune into her books for although it is a story line that you can follow in the backgound of all her books.
2008-11-06 - Good plotline but......
This book and the entire series has a good plot line, but Tempe could definitely use a few courses in diplomacy and anger management. How hard is it to follow your bosses order not to talk to the press, then Tempe goes head to head with a politician on TV. If you don't like your heroes making a fool of themselves in the extreme (and I don't) this book will drive you nuts. To be truthful I had to skip entire paragraphs because her actions were so stupid
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