Illuminated by lightning, a lifeless human hand seems to reach from a barrel of asphalt beside the Charlotte racetrack. Even for forensic anthropologist Dr Tempe Brennan, never easily shocked, it is a disturbing sight. And now she is under pressure to find answers before thousands arrive for the year's big race.
Before Dr Tempe Brennan can carry out a proper examination of a body discovered near a racetrack, the FBI mysteriously confiscate and destroy it. It's a dead end. Until Wayne Gamble, a young engineer, alerts Tempe to the disappearance of his sister and her boyfriend from Charlotte twelve years earlier, and she determines to uncover what really happened to them. When, a few days later, Gamble's body is found crushed under the wheels of a race car, Tempe realises the situation is truly sinister. And that even her own life could be in terrible danger...
Kathy Reichs is forensic anthropologist at the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Quebec. She is one of seventy-five anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology. Dr Reichs serves as Vice President of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and is a member of the National Police Advisory Council (RCMP/GRC) in Canada. A professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, she is a native of Chicago, where she received her Ph.D. at Northwestern. She now divides her time between Charlotte and Montreal and is a frequent expert witness at criminal trials.
When speaking of writers that have most influenced me, it’s safe to begin at the beginning. My mother Kathy Reichs has written eleven London Times best selling books and fostered the television drama Bones. I am incredibly proud of her talents, and her pride in mine has sweetened my success. My defection from Lawyer Camp (my father and brother are lawyers) to Writer Camp was heralded with joyous open arms by my mother, and the best part is enjoying it together. We don’t agree on everything, and we write about vastly different subject materials. But some day I may just cave in to her pestering that I “put a dead body” in one of my books so we can write something together! If you haven’t already, try her latest book, Devil Bones.
Maxim Jakubowski's view on TEMPERANCE BRENNAN...
Created by Kathy Reichs, Tempe Brennan is a forensic anthropologist who shares her time between North Carolina and Montreal, and has now appeared in almost ten novels where her medical examinations of bones and other sinister discoveries always send her on a trail of murder, peril and grief. Her latest outing is in 206 BONES.
See below where Kathy Reichs, bestselling author and forensic anthropologist, discusses how forensics have influenced her career. This was filmed at London's Barts Pathology Museum.
