Series: Temperance Brennan Book 21
Genre: Mystery & Thriller
Length: 352 pages
Audiobook Length: 10 hours and 31 minutes
First Published: 2022
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Rachael’s Review
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Scribner through Netgalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
In a North Carolina winter, forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan is enjoying the return of her daughter Katy. While Katy seems to be having trouble adjusting to civilian life, Tempe gets caught up in a case when an eyeball lands on her doorstep. Soon, Tempe realizes that a serial killer is trying to replicate her old cases.
If you’ve read one Temperance Brennan book, you’ve basically read them all. Kathy Reichs delivers the same formula as all her other books – Tempe has a case that nags at her, she figures it out but puts herself in a risky position, gets captured, and then is saved at the last moment. Yet, if you’ve managed to read this far into the series, you know what you are getting into. I will say, Cold, Cold Bones seemed to be a rather forgettable episode in the Temperance Brennan saga.
Publisher’s Description
Winter has come to North Carolina and, with it, a drop in crime. Freed from a heavy work schedule, Tempe Brennan is content to dote on her daughter Katy, finally returned to civilian life from the army. But when mother and daughter meet at Tempe’s place one night, they find a box on the back porch. Inside: a very fresh human eyeball.
GPS coordinates etched into the eyeball lead to a Benedictine monastery where an equally macabre discovery awaits. Soon after, Tempe examines a mummified corpse in a state park, and her anxiety deepens.
There seems to be no pattern to the subsequent killings uncovered, except that each mimics in some way a homicide that a younger Tempe had been called in to analyze. Who or what is targeting her, and why?
Helping Tempe search for answers is detective Erskine “Skinny” Slidell, retired but still volunteering with the CMPD cold case unit—and still displaying his gallows humor. Also pulled into the mystery: Andrew Ryan, Tempe’s Montreal-based beau, now working as a private detective.
Could this elaborately staged skein of mayhem be the prelude to a twist that is even more shocking? Tempe is at a loss to establish the motive for what is going on…and then her daughter disappears.
At its core, Cold, Cold Bones is a novel of revenge—one in which revisiting the past may prove the only way to unravel the present.
About Kathy Reichs
Kathy Reichs is a forensic anthropologist and the bestselling author of the Temperance Brennan series, which was made into the television series Bones. She divides her time between Charlotte, North Carolina, and Montreal, Quebec. Visit the author’s website →
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