Krishna
We have reviewed Cross Bones by the same author earlier.
I like puns and the title of this book is a fun pun. So, I really wanted to like this book, as the title predisposed me towards the book. But unfortunately, reading it is not like reading the title. But, I will save the rant for a little later…
A lot of Montreal flavour. Like the author herself, Tempe divides her time between Canada and US. Hence the Canadian flavour in the story.
The forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennen is called to testify in a murder case but also called by the Montreal police to investigate bones found in a basement. She finds that the bones belonged to three very young girls and is disturbed. She does not like the police chief Claudet but likes his assistant Charbonneau.
She is attracted to Ryan who seems to be double dealing with her. A lot of techno mumbo jumbo about bones and when they fuse with each other that would delight any CSI series fan.
The bones, she feels are modern but Claudet is sure she is wasting her time and these are ancient bones and no murder has taken place. She sends the bones over for testing. She also discovers that one of the buttons found in that was not ‘ancient’ like the other two found there, but a fake. When they find a filling in the teeth of the third skeleton, the police is forced to investigate.
The story is a lot of daily life and local Montreal colour. The colour is nice to read at first but when all there is to read is that, and the love life of Tempe and the friendship of Anne, it gets very boring and you want to scream ‘Please get on with the story. We will catch up, if required, over coffee later to learn all the minutiae about your personal life!’
They identify a particular man who behaved suspiciously in the past, and go to interview him. Boring stuff.
The blurb on the back cover says that Kathy Reichs is a master in escalating tension but she does not seem to have used even a little of those skills in writing this book. It starts tame and stays down for most of the book. It is not the conflict between Brennan and the abrasive Claudet or her pining for Ryan who seems to ignore her that we are reading this book. It is for a murder mystery. If Dr Brennan treats that as something to do when all her other interests are exhausted (and don’t get me even started on the moody friend Anne whom she caters to in addition to all the above and of course, as a higher priority than her work) it just irritates readers like me.
She learns that who she thought was Medecai is an imposter. She also figures out the original murders. Again there is some surprise there but the main twist in the book is her overlooking a possibility in her analysis of the bones. Really?
The twists are insipid. The pace is very slow. Not a page turner, this. Right near the end, there is a twist that is really good, but you have to wait for almost the entire book to be over before you say ‘Ha, this is more like it!’.
But that is fleeting. The dilemma with Ryan and Anne are sorted out quickly but the whole story is a bit drab. Perhaps it is me and CSI type of books. Don’t know. But I can only rate based on how I feel so, this gets a ….
4 / 10
– – Krishna (Mar 2018)