Sonderbooks Book Review of Cross Bones

Reviewed July 13, 2005.
Scribner, New York, 2005. 353 pages.
Available at Sembach Library (MCN F REI).

Kathy Reichs is a forensic anthropologist, and so is her detective, Tempe Brennan. They look at bones found at a crime site to find information about the victim and about how the crime was committed.

In Cross Bones, Tempe Brennan gets back to her archeological roots and goes to the Holy Land. An orthodox Jew has been murdered. Then a mysterious stranger shows her a picture of a skeleton found at Masada and tells her this is why the man was murdered.

Kathy Reichs’ books are more cerebral than suspenseful. But I find the description of the work of a forensic anthropologist fascinating. There’s an authentic ring to the work, since the author is describing her own job, and uses things that have actually occurred.

This book has shades of The Da Vinci Code without the gripping story. I didn’t like it that all the astonishing archaeological discoveries are given away in the note at the front of the book listed as “The Facts.” Let’s just say that some amazing discoveries have been made recently that may involve Jesus’ brothers and sisters. I won’t say more than that, and I recommend that you wait to read that part of the book until after you have read the story. If you discover the facts along with Tempe, it would be much more interesting, rather than dramatically revealing things you already know.

If it wasn’t a gripping book, it was an interesting one, and it was fun that Tempe got to go to Israel and got to get dirty doing some archaeology, involved in some astonishing finds, that turn out to have actually happened.

Review of another book by Kathy Reichs:
Monday Mourning

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Book Reviews by Sondra Eklund

****Cross Bones*

by Kathy Reichs