another fine addition to Kathy Reichs’s well-known Bones series. The novel Fire and Bones manages to be both calm and suspenseful at the same time. There’s also a lot of actual history thrown in with the detective fiction.

I don’t know anything about the television adaptations, but the novels are all solid mysteries. I’ve reviewed two of them previously in these pages: A Conspiracy of Bones and Cold Cold Bones. (Are you spotting a certain theme here? You too could be a detective.) There are a couple of flaws in Fire and Bones, but they’re not too egregious: some instances of too-stupid-to-live syndrome, and too much use of cliff-hangers at the end of each chapter. But I have to admit that the latter did the job of keeping me reading, so maybe it doesn’t count as a flaw.

The history of Washington DC from its founding, especially during and after the Prohibition Era, has a continuing impact on the story. As far as I know, it’s all accurate — but what do I know? And since the author is a professional forensic anthropologist, we also have to assume that that aspect of the story is accurate as well. So you’ll enjoy the mystery, you’ll learn some history, and you’ll learn some forensic anthropology — what more could anyone want?

Categories: Books