Book 25 of 2012: Bare Bones

Book 25 is another in the Kathy Reichs series of Temperance Brennan books, Bare Bones, number six to be exact. This one begins with the bones of a baby being discovered in a stove and then progesses through plane crash and unearthed poached animal remains to the usual climatic conclusion. One problem I do have with these books is, while they're good gripping reading at the time, once I've put them down for too long they all kind of blur into one another. In typing this (and I only read it about two weeks ago) I'm struggling to remember exactly what the plot of the novel was.

I think I've only read this one once (perhaps twice) before, which was really a good thing. I just could not remember the outcome of the book. It had the bonus of making me read it much quicker (finishing it in just three days) because I was totally hooked. All the cliffhangers worked for me, rather than just acting to remind me of what was going to come next.

There's a moment towards the end of the book (the traditional Chapter 30 moment which you get in pretty much every Temperance Brennan book) which involves snakes. I've been expecting it for the last three books but it finally caught me off-guard at the end of this one.

Another good thing about this book is that it doesn't end with the start of the next book. I mentioned this earlier with my Inkheart review; it's all very well if you're going on to the next book straight away and so you can just skip them (either at the end of one or the beginning of the next). But I like to read the whole book which means I end up reading the same chapter twice. I realise that I could just skip the last bit of the book with the bonus chapter, but I don't like doing that. I'm stubborn.

What it did have in its place was far more interesting to me. A little note about the real-life case which inspired this book. I'd much rather read about that than the first chapter of the next book. It was light-hearted and interesting. I don't remember how the next books end (in fact, I don't think I've read many more of this series) so I'm curious to see how those ones end.

All the various murders/deaths/dead animals are all linked in this one. A little bit unrealistic perhaps, but it worked well. Plus, Tempe's suspicions were unfounded at one point, which is nice. She's a better character for not being right all the time.