Blog Tour. Kathy Reichs - The Bone Collection - four excellent short stories that show Kathy Reichs is at the top of her game

Welcome to another stop on the Kathy Reichs Blog Tour - all about Kathy Reichs latest book - The Bone Collection - four chilling tales featuring Tempreance Brennan including First Bones, the story of Temperance Brennan's first case.

Now, as regular Crime Warp readers know, I’m particularly drawn to short stories – partly because my attention span is getting shorter with age, but mostly because a well crafted short story gives you all the delight of a long novel, that you can enjoy from start to finish in an hour or less.

So, just a little about The Bone Collection – four stories with very different settings, from Mecklenburg, to the Florida Everglades, the heights of Mount Everest, then back to Mecklenburg for a trip down memory lane to Brennan’s first case.  The stories in The Bone Collection all have those Kathy Reichs hallmarks – excellent technical detail that’s fascinating but not too overwhelming; strong and well developed characters, plus plots with suspense that grip the reader with more than one plain scary bit in each story!

I particularly liked the fourth short story, First Bones, about how Brennan becomes a police forensic anthropologist.  She’s settling down to examine some prehistoric remains, reflecting on her problems being in academia, when she has her first encounter with detective Slidell, who wants her to use her “bone whispering mojo” on a case.  Slidell is arrogant and judgemental, whilst Brennan is aloof and more than a little condescending.  I’m not sure what annoys her most, Slidell’s appearance in “butt shining polyester pants and K mart tie” or his “kiss my ass swagger”, but she’s soon at the heart of the case, working alongside Slidell and his partner Rinaldi to find the identity of the “crisper”.  And it’s not just her “bone whispering” skills that shine, Brennan’s able to join the dots to make sense of the clues that unlock the case - in no time at all, she's almost become Slidell's partner .  The case provides a revelation to Brennan – her current work has no impact outside academia, but solving this case will help people who are alive – she feels this is like a calling. It’s almost as if she and Slidell are fated to work together!

The four stories in The Bone Collection each have an Author’s Note that tells the reader about the inspiration behind story, and it’s fascinating to see not just the inspiration itself, but how it reflects Reichs’ values and what makes her tick as a human being as well as a professional forensic anthropologist and author.

Final verdict – a definite yes – four great short stories, with Reichs saving the best until last, with my personal favourite of the four – First Bones

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