Breaking Up is Hard To Do

Dear Kay Scarpetta (aka Patricia Cornwell),

It is with great sadness that I write this.  You and I have been friends for a long time, since the beginning of your literary career, in fact.  I was there through all of the terrifying cases, through the death of your boyfriend Mark in the London tube bombing, through all the ups and downs with Benton Wesley.  Like you I mourned when he "died", and was confused, angry, and eventually joyful when he returned from the dead.  I worried along with you about your niece Lucy-so much anger and cunning in one so young, but we both know she has a good heart.  And Pete Marino-there is perhaps no one else that you (and I) have gone through so much with.  I would have thought that you two (three) would be there for each other until the very end.  I still can't believe that he tried to rape you...

Wait a minute-I really can't believe that he tried to rape you.  I mean, can't believe it as in "that is completely inconsistent with his character up to this point in a very long book series".  Looking back, I realize that this was the beginning of the end for us, Kay.  After that, too many things changed in your life and the arc of the books, and I just can't keep up.  Changing cities, changing jobs, Pete's dismissal to the periphery.  Not even making Lucy a more central character (I continue to love her, BTW-maybe she can get her own series?!?) is making me enjoy our relationship any longer.  When I tried to reconnect last week by reading The Scarpetta Factor, I couldn't even make it through the first 100 pages.

So, after 20 years, I'm breaking up with you.  I will always remember the good times we've shared, collecting clues and catching bad guys.  But it seems we've grown apart, want different things now.  Good luck in your new job in New York City, or wherever else your author sends you.  I'd like to say that I'll keep in touch, but I think we both know that would be a lie.

Love always,
Heather

Spider Bones, Kathy Reichs

Back in my "only reads mystery and thrillers" days, I became infatuated with the Temperance Brennan series by Kathy Reichs.  I loved all of the smart, strong female detectives-Kinsey Milhone, Kay Scarpetta, Skip Langdon-but Tempe was one of my favorites.  Maybe it was the whole anthropology thing, but I devoured every book as soon as I could get my hands on it.

Then came the show Bones-so loosely based on this series that if the character didn't have the same name I would never have known they were related at all.  After the success of Bones, it felt to me like Reichs was calling it in with her books.  I know that there must have been pressure on her to keep churning out the books at the same one-a-year rate even after she started working on the show, but the last few books have been pretty thin-in numbers of pages, plot, and character development.

So it is with great pleasure that I am able to report that Spider Bones, her latest book, seems to be swinging back in the other direction.  In Spider Bones, Tempe investigates a drowning victim in Canada.  It seems like a clear case of accidental death, but there's a snag-the fingerprints identify the victim as a man who was supposedly killed in Viet Nam in 1968.  Tempe travels to Hawaii to the Joint Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Accounting Command, or JPAC, a military agency tasked with searching out and identifying America's war dead from World War II, Korea, and Viet Nam.  What starts as a routine investigation turn violent when Tempe's work stirs up the interest of a local businessman with mob connections and a Samoan drug cartel.

While not as good as the best of her early books, this novel takes a step in the right direction.  The mystery kept me guessing, which can be hard to do since I've read so many mysteries and thrillers over the years.  The topic was interesting, and not something I knew before.  But what really makes this series for me is the interplay between Tempe and Andrew Ryan, the Canadian cop who she has an on-again-off-again relationship with.  If you're also a Reichs fan, I think that you will enjoy this one better than the last few.  I only hope they continue to go back to their glory days before the distraction of Bones.

206 Bones-Kathy Reichs

I love me some David Boreanaz.  Way before there was Team Edward, there was Angel, the tortured vampire with a soul from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  What does David Boreanaz have to do with a Kathy Reichs novel, you ask?  Nothing-except that he now plays a characters on Bones, a television show VERY loosely based on Kathy Reichs character Temperance Brennan.  I give you this background on DB as an explanation for my love of said show, despite the fact that the only things that the show and Kathy Reich's actual books have in common is the name of the main character and her profession.  If you want the REAL Temperance Brennan, you have to read the books.

Like her latest book, 206 Bones.  There's a lot going on in this one, even though it is one of her shorter books.  There is a sabotage plot, a serial murderer, and a 40 year old missing person's case.  The best part-Andrew Ryan, the hot Quebecois police officer, is back.  He's done with the mother of the child he just found about about, and he is ready to get back to business with Tempe. Question is, is she ready for him?  (I for one am rooting for them to get back together-hot guys that speak French are quite a catch!)

As usual, the story is fast paced, and there is lots of really interesting forensic anthropological goodness.  The title of the book, of course, refers to the number of bones in the human body.  One thing of interest for Chicago-dwellers is that the setting for the first part of the book is Elmhurst.  Tempe, who's originally from Illinois, comes back to visit her former in-laws, and while here she gets sucked into a missing persons case.  I so enjoyed reading that part of the book-the body is found at the Thornton Quarry, just below the bridge that take Interstates 294 and 80 over the large hole in the ground where my daughter thought the Flintstones lived when she was little.  This is, oh, about five minutes from my house.  I drive over that bridge so often it doesn't even trigger my bridge phobia.  Every step of their time in Chicago was recognizable to me...I love it when an author takes the time to get the details right.

I have to admit, I've felt let down by the last couple Reichs books.  It seemed like she was phoning it in, and I thought that maybe concentrating on the show was taking away from her writing.  But this book gives me hope that we are going to get out of the doldrums and get back to the fascinating exploration of forensic anthropology that is a Temperance Brennan novel.