Cold, Cold Bones

by Kathy Reichs

Overview

“Reichs has written her masterpiece—smart, scary, complicated, and engrossing.” —Michael Connelly
“This page-turning series never lets the reader down.” —Harlan Coben
“The crowning achievement of a master storyteller” —Nelson DeMille

#1 New York Times bestselling thriller writer Kathy Reichs’s twenty-first novel of suspense featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan who uncovers a series of gruesome killings eerily reenacting the most shocking of her prior cases.

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982190026
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	07/05/2022
Series:	Temperance Brennan Series
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	10,643
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Kathy Reichs’s first novel Déjà Dead, published in 1997, won the Ellis Award for Best First Novel and was an international bestseller. To date, she has written twenty-two novels featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. Kathy was also a producer of Fox Television’s longest running scripted drama, Bones, which was based on her work and her novels. One of very few forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, Kathy divides her time between Charlotte, North Carolina, and Montreal, Québec. Visit her at KathyReichs.com or follow her on Twitter @KathyReichs, Instagram @KathyReichs, or Facebook @KathyReichsBooks.

Hometown:

Charlotte, North Carolina and Montreal, Québec

Place of Birth:

Chicago, Illinois

Education:

B.A., American University, 1971; M.A., Ph.D., Northwestern University

Website:

http://kathyreichs.com/

Editorial Reviews

"Cold, Cold Bones is a thing of clever beauty—smart, scary, complicated, and engrossing from the first sentence. Kathy Reichs has written her masterpiece, a story that reminds us that the past is not quiet and never completely behind us.”
—Michael Connelly, New York Times bestselling author of The Dark Hours and The Law of Innocence

“Cold, Cold Bones reanimates all the ghosts from Temperance Brennan’s forensic past until they thoroughly haunt her present. Who or what is staging this grimly nostalgic murder spree? In Kathy Reich’s deft hands, the question is given delicious urgency. This page-turning series never lets the reader down.”
—Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author of Stay Close, Hold Tight, and Tell No One

"Masterfully constructed...The cold cases may be stacking up, but for Temperance Brennan, the real target is very close to home."
—J.A. Jance, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to Lose and Proof of Life

“A mystery within a mystery that invites you to get into the action, complete with twisting turns and heart-stopping dives into the unknown. What I love most about Kathy Reichs’s novels is Tempe and Skinny’s witty dialogue. These two iconic characters make one of the best investigative teams in mystery literature. Cold, Cold Bones is the crowning achievement of a master storyteller, a feast for her many fans, and a delight for new readers.”
—Nelson DeMille, New York Times bestselling author of The Deserter and The Cuban Affair

Praise for The Bone Code



“The Bone Code is a brilliant entry in a ground-breaking series and does Temperance Brennan proud. The story has all the elements we’ve come to expect—it’s smart, gripping, and builds to a heart-stopping crescendo. More than twenty years ago, these wonderful novels began paving the way for other writers, especially Canadians like me, to be noticed. I owe Kathy and Tempe a debt of gratitude, not just for helping to make my own writing life possible but for hours of white-knuckle reading.”
—Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author of All the Devils Are Here

"Kathy Reichs is expert at making science both scary and thrilling, and she's in top form in The Bone Code. The story moves at such a relentless pace I couldn't stop turning the pages!"
—Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author of Choose Me

“Over the course of twenty books, Kathy Reichs and Tempe Brennan have thrilled readers with pacey, mazey tales grounded in real science, with plots springing from the author's prodigious knowledge and passion for truth and justice. We readers are truly grateful—and looking forward to the next twenty!”
—Ian Rankin, New York Times bestselling author of the Inspector Rebus novels

“Few crime writers are as edifying and terrifying as Kathy Reichs. She never lets you forget that “folk do the damnedest things.”
—The Times (UK)

“A strong story told in a breezy fashion with an interesting [array of] memorable minor characters.”
—Evening Standard (UK)

“[Places] the forensic anthropologist in a race against time...Unmissable.”
—Crime Monthly

“I await the next Kathy Reichs thriller with the same anticipation I have for the new Lee Child or Patricia Cornwell. The Bone Code over-achieves. Temperance Brennan uses all her skills as a forensic anthropologist to solve a murder mystery story that races across America at the speed of fright.”
—James Patterson

From the Publisher

02/01/2022

Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan is enjoying the company of her daughter, fresh out of the army, when they discover a box on the back porch containing a human eyeball. GPS coordinates traced on the eyeball take them to a Benedictine monastery and another bloody find, after which they stumble upon a mummified corpse in a park. All these unpleasantries imitate cases in Temperance's past. With a 150,000-copy first printing.

Library Journal

2022-05-25
Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan is nearly buried under a series of varied homicides that play like a mix tape of her own greatest hits.

Veronica Kwalwasser is found decapitated inside a plastic bag labeled “Here’s Johnny!” in a deserted privy, her severed eyeball thoughtfully left in a package on Tempe’s porch. Gangbanger Miguel Sanchez is missing an ear when he’s discovered. Frank Boldonado has been hanging from a tall tree for a long time. All of them have been killed in different ways, but Tempe tells Det. Donna Henry that she’s certain their deaths all have something in common. And she’s right: They’re all copycat versions of otherwise unrelated deaths Tempe investigated years ago. Clearly the killer has a special grudge against Tempe, but in “America in the age of rage,” where everyone reserves the right to unlimited anger against anyone else, how can she begin to look for the motive that drives the killer? And given the wide array of malefactors who have it in for her, how can she narrow the field before her daughter, Katy Petersons, a toughened Army veteran who’s gone suspiciously missing, ends up paying the ultimate price for whatever it is that her mother once did? Reichs supplies a great hook, a double helping of homicides past and present, and all the meticulous forensic details and throwaway cliffhanger chapter endings you’d expect from this celebrated series, though the motive behind the murders is significantly less interesting than the ghoulish crimes themselves.

Half a loaf—the first half.

Kirkus Reviews