A Conspiracy of Bones

4.5★s

A Conspiracy of Bones is the nineteenth book in the Temperance Brennan series by best-selling American anthropologist and author, Kathy Reichs. Life has turned upside down on anthropologist Tempe Brennan: apart from distracting family dramas and her own medical diagnosis, Ryan and Slidell have abandoned their police force jobs to start up a PI business. But most disturbing of all is that the new boss at MCME has a sizeable grudge against Tempe and is freezing her out of her usual consultancy there.

Margot Heavner, appointed after Larabee's murder, seems to be oriented to maximum publicity at the expense of ethics. She and Tempe locked horns over the case of a murdered child, and now she is being excluded from a strange new case: a faceless, fingerless, gutless body that Heavner has already implied to the press is a murder victim.

But apparently someone wants Tempe involved: she has been sent, anonymously, pictures of the body. Tempe has another ally at the MCME, and she manages to get her own photos, a sample and information about the autopsy. And what she sees raises one puzzling question: why is Heavner lying about the body?

Can Tempe resist getting involved? If she can discreetly investigate and identify the victim, is she doing it for the right reasons? Because publicly proving Heavner wrong and ending her exile from the lab is an attractive proposition. Slidell, if initially hesitant to get involved, becomes quite interested when links to a certain missing-child cold case become apparent.

Tempe does exasperate: her tendency to jump, alone, into a potentially dangerous situation against all reasonable advice is starting to wear a little thin. However, the snappy dialogues between Tempe and Slidell, Tempe and Ryan are a joy, and there is lots of clever detective work done by both Tempe and Slidell.

This instalment features a radio shock-jock, child porn and paedophiles, conspiracy theories and the dark web, and Reichs also includes plenty of fascinating tidbits like: Zombie ants, military bunker real estate, composite imaging from DNA phenotypes and taphophobia. The notes at the end are also interesting. Virtually boneless, but still plenty to intrigue.

This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Australia