A Conspiracy of Bones by Kathy Reichs
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This novel comes with a considerable pedigree, being number nineteen in Reichs’ popular crime series featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. The author was also a producer of the hit TV series ‘Bones’. Reichs herself is a forensic anthropologist, holding high status in her profession in America and Canada.
Reichs has written a postscript to the book, entitled ‘From the Forensic Files of Dr. Kathy Reichs’. In it, she describes her extensive research process when planning a new novel. She also confirms that, as many of her fans already know, a recent dip in her writing productivity has been due to her diagnosis of an ‘unruptured cerebral aneurysm’. Like Temperance Brennan in the novel, she has suffered ‘a brain oddity and headaches’. This offers a clue to interpreting Tempe’s responses, which are generally unpredictable. As Reichs puts it, the protagonist constantly has to ask herself the question, ‘What is real and what is not?’
‘A Conspiracy of Bones’ opens with a quotation from Virginia Woolf, ‘It is harder to kill a phantom than a reality.’ The reason for this choice soon becomes clear. Tempe Brennan is disturbed by a night-time visitation. In the moment, she cannot be sure whether it is real or a hallucination, but, throughout the events of the book, a memory of the trench-coated figure waiting on a neighbour’s lawn returns to haunt her. Soon after, pictures of an unidentifiable corpse sent to her by text from an unknown source propel her on a terrifying journey to a hideous truth.
Tempe’s personality comes across as a mixture of over-confidence and paranoia. She lives on junk food and microwave meals, sleeps irregularly and does not exercise. In spite of this, her middle-aged body recovers quickly when injured, which often happens because, like many fictional detectives, she has a tendency to rush into dangerous situations without assessing the risks or calling for backup. Of course, this makes for an exciting story, but in Tempe’s case, it clashes with her highly professional attitude to practice as a forensic scientist. No doubt this uncharacteristic ‘intemperance’ (please excuse the pun) can be blamed on the aneurysm.
Tempe and her investigative sidekick Skinny Slidell are adrift in a world of criminality they barely understand, kept afloat by a sense of injustice. A shared liking for wisecracks and backchat also helps. Reichs’s writing style has evolved since her first novel, ‘Déja Dead’, won the 1997 Ellis Award for Best First Novel. The style of ‘A Conspiracy of Bones’ may be described as characteristic of the modern American thriller, influenced by Raymond Chandler. Sentences are short, the point of view is impersonal, it is character-led and at times the plot is less important than the mood. The structure is highly visual, made up of dramatic images suitable for being translated into film. ‘I’m lousy with auditory cues – names, verbal instructions, lyrics. But give me a visual – a map, a crime scene, a face, a photo – and my mind logs data with uncanny precision.’
Tempe’s account of how her memory works is confirmed as the story develops. Reichs’s descriptive writing is superb, and the novel is as packed with contrasts as Tempe’s mind. ’The tiny pond was a dark void, woolly where the water met the bank.’ ‘The experience left me feeling like I’d swum through raw sewage.’ ‘A surprising puff of air brushed my skin.’ She skilfully conveys what it’s like to live and work in a part of the world where the climate out of doors is unbearably hot, but interiors are artificially cool. This is especially true when she is writing about her home life, with her cat Birdie, her unpredictable mother and her largely absent detective lover.
What did I like about this expertly written crime story? How Kathy Reichs shines a light on vile forms of criminal behaviour that are fiendishly hard to identify and prove, her amazing expertise and the care she takes to present her knowledge in ways the average person can understand.
What would I change? Occasionally, here are points where the Chandleresque style does not work. For example, Tempe’s account of a fight scene she is involved in reads more like the response of a young man than a middleaged female academic.
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