I picked up this Temperance Brennan novel at the library book sale, pretty sure that I hadn't seen this before. Luckily I was right.

I needed a good book to get me back into reading for fun, rather than schoolwork. This was it. I devoured this one in 2 days. The TV show Bones is based on the Temperance Brennan novels but I personally love the novels more although I really enjoy the show.

Bones to Ashes takes us to Brennan's past as her baby brother dies, her father dies and her mom and sister and her are uprooted to live with her Gran. Brennan meets a girl named Evangeline and they play together every summer until Evangeline disappears. No one wants to talk about her disappearance and Brennan is told it's very "dangerous" and to go away.

In present time, several corpses have landed in Brennan's lab, including the old skeleton of a girl who is possibly Brennan's old friend. Several disappearances of young girls over several years has Ryan, Hippo and Brennan rushing to trying to figure the case out before another young girl ends up missing.

A very fast paced and ultimately surprising book. ( )

Not high literature, but an engaging, fun read. A good mystery with a healthy dose of science. ( )

No rating, I was unable to finish this one. I couldn't get past all the French and forensics to get to the meat of the story. Not my cup of tea.

Nice to see some cold case stuff, and great that they weren’t all related! As always my fave things were character related, great to see the Tempe’s emotional reaction. But Ryan! Here’s hoping that the next book sees that headed back where it should be! ( )

The back cover claims that this novel is primarily about a skeleton: ‘that of a young girl, no more than fourteen years old’. In fact, the novel as a whole seems to be an opportunity for Reichs to display her extensive knowledge of forensic anthropology as it is full of skeletons, a couple of which are completely irrelevant to the main plot. These skeletons are discussed in a manner that is usually accessible, but sometimes the discussion (of diatoms, for example) just became too long-winded, scientific and dull to keep my interest. The science behind death and bodies can be fascinating – I love watching CSI, for example – but Reichs seems to forget that the details are only interesting as long as they are given concisely and can be understood fairly easily. Pages of discussion over one smell detail that leads to no definitive conclusion may be very realistic but it is not particularly entertaining.

The heroine of this story in Temperance Brennan, and it is possible that I would have had more patience with her if I had read some of the stories from earlier on in this series. As it is, she struck me as highly irritating because of her irrational belief that a skeleton with a seemingly random past must be a childhood friend who disappeared from Tempe’s life in mysterious circumstances. As she tries to make the link using science, Tempe is distracted by Detective Andrew Ryan and their on-again/off-again (currently off – or is it?) relationship. Again, this probably appeals to those readers who have built up a relationship with Tempe in the previous novels. It did add a certain emotional angle, but the novel didn’t really need this added angle because Tempe was already so stressed out by the thought of her childhood friend and the antics of her sister, Harry.

As the story develops, a lot of the plot is developed through conversations. This gives the novel a certain sense of realism and sometimes allows for very slight comic touches, like the following:

“You’ll be proud of your baby sister.”
Oh no. “Tell me.”

Or this:

“You sound like one of those travel brochures in the motel lobby.”
“I read four while you were doing touch-up on your bangs.”
“They were greasy.”

As I said, they’re very slight comic touches. It also allows us to understand the relationships between characters through the tone and style of conversation, particularly when Tempe is trying to talk to Andrew or her sister. This does also mean that a lot of information can be given in an accessible way and the novel is at its most engaging when you are trying to work out where a story is going and how it might be relevant.

There are several twists and turns in the plot, but unfortunately Reichs usually feels the need to point them out in a manner that out-dramatises James Patterson and is actually highly reminiscent of the teenage ‘Point Horror’ novels. Cliffhangers at the ends of chapters are dropped with as much subtlety as an atom bomb, then immediately mopped up at the beginning of the next chapter. I found this to be both irritating and an insult to my intelligence. Rather than making the novel a more compelling read, I found that I simply took breaks from reading when I was in the middle of dull chapters, rather than between chapters.

Another issue related to Reichs’ style is the amazing number of short sentences. They are everywhere. Really. Peppered through the text. Everywhere. And she repeats herself. Often. Now imagine this style. Sustained through a whole novel. I really do appreciate the value of using short sentences for effect, but I wish somebody had taught Reichs that they have much more effect when used in moderation, a bit like exclamation marks. Admittedly they are most often used when Tempe is finding some detail shocking, but that just emphasises the shock-horror approach of Reichs’ narrative style. Personally, I prefer a bit of psychological depth to my crime fiction, but this is all about plot and surface characters.

After the plot has developed, a suspect is found. Somehow this still fails to create suspense, perhaps because Reichs makes it clear that the officers on the case are all so exhausted and stressed that you are too busy feeling like they’ve had a hard time to really celebrate their finds. Once the dramatic climax is over, there is an explanatory chapter that neatly ties everything off. While I always hate being left wondering, I felt that a truly effective novel would have made most of those points clear during the build up or climax, rather than setting them out in the tidy-up.

So what’s the overall verdict? ‘Bones to Ashes’ is a poorly written but well-constructed crime fiction novel that contains a bit too much discussion of obtuse scientific points. I’m sure that fans will love it as it includes familiar characters and their relationships, but those looking for a thrilling crime novel should like elsewhere. ( )