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Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Flash and Bones

And now for something completely different: from the Third Reich to Kathy Reichs.  The latest in her Dr. Temperance Brennan series is Flash and Bones (#146).  The background for this one is the world of NASCAR - a natural, since Tempe's home is in Charlotte, a major racing hub.

Tempe is called in when a body is unearthed from a landfill located on the Charlotte Raceway grounds during Race Week.  A man connected with one of the racing crews there for the Nationwide series contacts her after the news gets out.  Wayne Gamble wonders if the body could belong to his big sister, missing since 1998.  She and her boyfriend vanished at that time and have never been heard from since.  The police at the time insisted that the couple ran away together, but her brother is sure that's not the case.  And there's been another disappearance during Race Week that has the FBI concerned: someone from the CDC with access to potential biological weapons is missing.  Can there be a connection between the body in the landfill and the missing CDC employee?

This was a really fast read for me.  I think Kathy Reichs' writing has gotten better as she goes along.  Tempe Brennan seems more human in her later stories, with the emphasis on character instead of procedural forensic details.  If you're a diehard CSI fan you may object to this trend, but I, for one, enjoy it.

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