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Tarfumes.com - Devil Bones: A Novel (Temperance Brennan Novels)
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List Price: $25.95
Our Price: $16.52
Your Save: $ 9.43 ( 36% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Scribner
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780743294386
ISBN: 0743294386
Label: Scribner
Manufacturer: Scribner
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2008-08-26
Publisher: Scribner
Release Date: 2008-08-26
Studio: Scribner
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Editorial Reviews:
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Following her most successful book to date, Kathy Reichs -- international number one bestselling author, forensic anthropologist, and producer of the Fox television hit Bones -- returns to Charlotte, North Carolina, where Temperance Brennan encounters a deadly mix of voodoo, SanterĂa, and devil worship in her quest to identify two young victims. In a house under renovation, a plumber uncovers a cellar no one knew about, and makes a rather grisly discovery -- a decapitated chicken, animal bones, and cauldrons containing beads, feathers, and other relics of religious ceremonies. In the center of the shrine, there is the skull of a teenage girl. Meanwhile, on a nearby lakeshore, the headless body of a teenage boy is found by a man walking his dog. Nothing is clear -- neither when the deaths occurred, nor where. Was the skull brought to the cellar or was the girl murdered there? Why is the boy's body remarkably well preserved? Led by a preacher turned politician, citizen vigilantes blame devil worshippers and Wiccans. They begin a witch hunt, intent on seeking revenge. Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan -- "five-five, feisty, and forty-plus" -- is called in to investigate, and a complex and gripping tale unfolds in this, Kathy Reichs's eleventh taut, always surprising, scientifically fascinating mystery. With a popular series on Fox -- now in its third season and in full syndication -- Kathy Reichs has established herself as the dominant talent in forensic mystery writing. Devil Bones features Reichs's signature blend of forensic descriptions that "chill to the bone" (Entertainment Weekly) and the surprising plot twists that have made her books phenomenal bestsellers in the United States and around the world.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: So boring
Comment: I have never claimed that Kathy Reichs' books are high art, but usually they are pretty entertaining and a good bet for either a nice beach read or a rainy day read.
Let me just say that Devil Bones is neither. I plodded through this book and although I only started reading it about a week ago, it felt to me as though I had been reading it for 3 months!
The basic story would lead you to believe it is about witchcraft and devil worship and actually, the first few pages were creepy - I liked the description of Tempe crouching in a scary basement, all dark and gloomy.
However, it went downhill from there. There is some nice interaction between Tempe and her two police friends (and a bit of a twist related to this) but otherwise, this book has no direction, no plotline and more importantly is boring, boring, boring.
I got to a point where I was skipping pages just to get to something "good" and I never seem to get to the "good" part. The ending has absolutely nothing to do with the beginning and was ridiculous.
I can suspend my disbelief quite a lot if I am enjoying the storyline and a thriller does not have to be high art for me, but a book must be entertaning!!!! and the ultimate sin was committed here!!! the book was BORING.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Deftly Plotted Mystery, Lots of Pagan Religion, Jammed with Medical Details, and No Romantic Movement
Comment: If you are a long-time fan of this series, I've written this review for you. You can skip this book if you want to. In terms of series continuity, I'm sure Dr. Reichs will be able to put in two sentences near the start of the next book to handle what happens in this one.
If you haven't read any books in the series, don't start with this one. Start with Deja Dead, a much better book.
If you like mysteries that are hard to solve as a reader, you will like Devil Bones much better than most readers. That's also true if you are fascinated by pagan religions and cannot get enough information about dead bodies.
On the other hand, if you want an entertaining story that's an easy read, you will probably think this is a two-star book. The book also features an easy-to-hate politician who makes the story less appealing. If you like to see Dr. Tempe Brennan's love life get somewhere, this book is pretty close to a zero.
Let's face it. We all have bad days. Tempe seems to be having one throughout this book. That also makes the book more of a downer than it had to be.
Tempe is called out when an apparent root cellar turns out to contain a human skull, associated with what looks like some sort of pagan religious rite. Tracking down the rest of that body becomes the focus of much of the story in Devil Bones. Soon thereafter, a body is dumped that displays satanic signs. Are the two events connected? How?
The investigation has many unexpected twists and turns, most of which wouldn't have happened if Tempe had been a little sharper in assessing one of the clues. If you are quicker than Tempe, you'll unravel the mystery faster than she did. But you'll probably miss the real criminal until all is revealed unless you have ESP.
I learned way too much about pagan religions and medical details from this book, but I liked the mystery being difficult to solve. So I rounded up from two stars to three.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Story superb, quality of CD abominable
Comment: I love Kathy Reichs' stories and would give her five points. I won't talk about the story here.
The quality of CDs from Simon and Schuster use is extremely bad. Almost on every single CD you here scratches, stuttering, lost words and sentences. I had also bought a copy of "Bones to Ashes" and had the same problem there too. Somehow Amazon shipped the article twice to me and I had to use both copies to put together a usable set of dics.
I own hundreds of both music and hearbook CDs and I have nether come across these problems. Why do they use such an inexplicable bad CD production?
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not the Best of the Series
Comment: I have to come to expect so much more from the series than this book was able to offer. The historical background is dry and uninteresting, not the usual transfer of intriguing information by the author. It is not that the topic is not interesting to me as I am a practicing member of an earth-oriented religion. However the intellectual areas do not mesh with the interpersonal on a level I have come to expect from the author. The use of ending a paragraph negating all that was just written in terms of dire future events became annoying. Bringing an new romantic character and then not developing him at all was a letdown and the coming of Andrew Ryan into the storyline seem trite and contrived as if he was there as a useless appendage. His part was also never developed to satifaction. Lastly we have he ex-husband and dragging in all THAT involves with the half his age fiance' and again the developement was left undone. I think the book would have been better served to leave off so many personal demons, including the off the wagon drinking binge that happens and then is treated as if there were no physical effects and fewer mental ones. All in all it was an OK read, but not up to standards of the other Tempe Brennan novels.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, but a caveat: it becomes VERY confusing!
Comment:
I'm a long-time Reichs fan, and have enjoyed her books with the glaring exception of "Cross Bones" (which I reviewed when it came out).
I won't bother rehashing the story line, as you can see that in the publishing reviews, other than to say Tempe Brennan finds herself again involved in murder most weird, this time involving off-stream religions (Santeria, etc) as well as the gay chickenhawk underworld.
Many of Reichs's trademark stylistic touches are here in full glory to be enjoyed: her wit, her fast-paced plotting, and deft character portrayals. The story moves right along, and there's really not a dull moment.
But I had one fairly major problem with this book. There comes a point in the book at which she and her partner are trying to decipher some clues in the form of notes left in a personal shorthand code by one of the murder victims. Further, several of the players - victims and suspects - are also known to be using aliases.
Well, these two issues work in conjunction in advancing the plot, and in all honesty, I found it EXTREMELY confusing. I felt like I needed a schematic diagram to keep track of what was going on. By the time we reached the denouement and the identity of the killer was revealed, I was totally at sea.
So.... Four stars for style, two stars for clarity, ending up with three stars.
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