Bones Never Lie by Kathy Reichs

Bones Never Lie by Kathy Reichs

2014, Bantam

Series: Book 17 of Temperance Brennan

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Rating

Synopsis: Unexpectedly called in to the Charlotte PD’s Cold Case Unit, Dr. Temperance Brennan wonders why she’s been asked to meet with a homicide cop who’s a long way from his own jurisdiction. The shocking answer: Two child murders, separated by thousands of miles, have one thing in common—the killer. Years ago, Anique Pomerleau kidnapped and murdered a string of girls in Canada, then narrowly eluded capture. It was a devastating defeat for her pursuers, Brennan and police detective Andrew Ryan. Now, as if summoned from their nightmares, Pomerleau has resurfaced in the United States, linked to victims in Vermont and North Carolina. When another child is snatched, the reign of terror promises to continue—unless Brennan can rise to the challenge and make good on her second chance to stop a psychopath.

But Brennan will have to draw her bitter ex-partner out of exile, keep the local police and feds from one another’s throats, and face more than just her own demons as she stalks the deadliest of predators into the darkest depths of madness.

The Good: Bones Never Lie revisits a suspect from the 7th book in the series, Monday Mourning. Anique Pomerleau was never caught and I love that we get to see her back on Tempe's radar after almost a decade (in our time, not hers). My heart broke for Ryan as he hid from the world in his own mourning. The on-again, off-again disaster that is Tempe and Ryan is at its uncomfortable peak here. After previous books, we finally get to know Tempe's mom. She's a hell of a character and I hope to see here for a good long while in the series.

The Bad: The red herrings were glaringly obvious as such. Probably not a huge issue to the casual mystery reader who hasn't built up a tolerance to that sort of thing, but someone this far into a series is going to quickly realize that obvious clues and suspects offered up early on are only meant to mislead and automatically ignore them - thus sort of pointing the reader right towards the real ending to soon.