Book Review: Cross Bones

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Cross Bones     Amazon US PB Amazon US TPB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada TPB Amazon Canada HC
Kathy Reichs
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Forensics   Woman Main Character
Series: Dr. Temperance Brennan # 8
Scribner, June 2005, $25.00, 366 pp.

At Quebec’s Central Crime and Medical Lab, forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan is assigned to work on the case of Orthodox Jew Avram Ferris. The on-site investigators thought he committed suicide but Tempe, an expert at skeletal anatomy, comes to the conclusion that he was murdered. When she steps out of the autopsy room a man stops her and gives her a picture saying this was the reason Ferris was killed.

When she sends the picture to her colleague, biblical archeologist Jake Drum, he becomes very excited and believes that the intact skeleton is that of a man who lived in the first century. Jake traces the skeleton from a monastery to a museum to Ferris wanting to sell it on the black market. Tempe, her lover detective Andrew Ryan and Jake end up in Israel where they hope to identify the bones that were in the picture that were found in Cave 221 in Masada. A tooth that doesn’t belong to the skeleton is traced to a tomb in the Kidron Valley where it is thought is the resting place of Jesus and his family. The closer they get to the answer, the more danger Tempe finds herself in.

Kathy Reichs writes as well as Patricia Cornwall and her storylines are just as exciting, complex and innovative. CROSS BONES takes the heroine out of her milieu and places her in Israel keeping the series fresh and interesting. The heroine is a brilliant and strong willed woman who is determined to get the answers she seeks even if it means putting herself in dangerous situations. Readers who love fast paced action packed thrillers will definitely want to read the book.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner