Bones: Buried Deep [Mass Market Paperback]

Max Allan Collins (Author)

Book Description

Series: Bones | Publication Date: February 28, 2006

Tempe's work at the Jeffersonian Institute is put on hold when Special Agent Seeley Booth, stalled on a case deposing a Chicago mob family, calls her in to assist with a bizarre discovery: a plastic bag of skeletal remains -- and a chilling note -- left on the steps of a federal building. Tempe determines the bones are from different corpses, suggesting a serial killer's handiwork. A suspect is quickly taken into custody, but Tempe senses the case is far from closed. And as Booth's Mafia case heats up with violent twists and bloody discoveries, including ties to one of Chicago's most gruesome and notorious killers, Tempe must unravel the story of the bones, where the truth lies buried -- in order to stay alive.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kathy Reichs, like her character Temperance Brennan, is a forensic anthropologist, formerly for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in North Carolina and currently for the Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de mÉdecine lÉgale for the province of Quebec. A professor in the department of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, she is one of only seventy-nine forensic anthropologists ever certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, is past Vice President of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and serves on the National Police Services Advisory Board in Canada. Reichs’s first book, DÉja Dead, catapulted her to fame when it became a New York Times bestseller and won the 1997 Ellis Award for Best First Novel. Her novel, Devil Bones, was a #1 New York Times bestseller.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Star (February 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416524614
• ISBN-13: 978-1416524618
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #397,117 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Max Allan Collins is a New York Times bestselling author of original mysteries, a Shamus award winner and an experienced author of movie adaptions and tie-in novels. His graphic novel ROAD TO PERDITION was made into a major motion picture by Tom Hank's production company, Playtone.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

86 of 99 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Inferior to Kathy Reichs's novels in every way, July 25, 2006

By 

Todd V. Leone "Todd Victor Leone" (San Francisco, California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bones: Buried Deep (Mass Market Paperback)

The best I can say about this novel, which was "reverse engineered" from the TV series "Bones," is that I read it straight through. It held my interest sufficiently to keep me reading. That really is the best I can say about it. Did I like it? Well, not exactly. I didn't hate it, but, in the end, I wasn't much satisfied with having read it.

My complaints about it apply, pretty much, to nearly every novel I've read that has been written by a hired author engaged to produce a novel based on characters from a TV show. It's formulaic. It's lightweight. The characters aren't well developed at all. With the slightly oversized type and extra spacing between lines and the number of pages (compared to any novel by Kathy Reichs herself), it was more like reading a lengthy short story - kind of like the many Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys novelettes I read in my youth. There wasn't that much to the plot. To paraphrase Dorothy Parker, clearly this is a novel to be tossed aside lightly, because even if you threw it with great force, there's so little substance to it the air resistance would keep it from going very far.

"Bones: Buried Deep" is written by one Max Allan Collins, an author hired to produce a novel from the characters seen on TV, and he did that. (He seems to do a lot of that sort of thing -- run a search on his novels and you'll find a large number of them that are based on the three "CSI" TV series. There are a smaller number based on "Dark Angel.") He's an adequate writer, but I suspect he had no real enthusiasm for this project. None of the characters is his brainchild. The dialog is less than intriguing and the narration, presented by an omniscient observer referring to all characters in this third person, tells you just a bit about what Temperance Brennan and Seeley Booth are thinking and feeling, but not enough to matter. There just isn't much to the characters or what they say. It's telling that the copyright is owned by the TV production company.

If, from the foregoing, you were to infer that I'm not an enthusiastic fan of the TV show "Bones," you'd be totally incorrect. I thoroughly enjoy the TV show, which functions admirably as a TV show. It's one of my favorite things to watch on television, always entertaining, never disappointing. I'm also glad that the TV show introduced me to the name Kathy Reichs and inspired me to read the novels that she actually wrote. They're excellent. They outshine the Max Allan Collins's novel by several degrees of magnitude.

I suspect that once Reichs signed her contract to do "Bones" on TV, the production company began to mandate changes she could not veto or maybe it was the Fox Network, or both. They kept the name Temperance Brennan for the main character. She remained a forensic anthropologist by profession and one who gets involved in murder cases. But every other recurring character from Kathy Reichs's novels disappeared, and Temperance 2 was rewritten in every other way you can think of. Temperance 2 is not middle-aged, she has never married, so she isn't divorced as is Temperance 1, she hasn't a daughter in college, she's a martial arts expert, and she's particularly ill-versed as to popular culture. Temperance 1, on the other hand, isn't clueless about pop culture - she goes to movies and watches TV - but she might not know the names of the latest rock groups teens are listening to. She is opposed to guns and wouldn't have one and she's particularly ineffective when it comes to self defense. Her first home is in Charlotte, North Carolina where she's on the anthropology faculty at the University of North Carolina and where she assists the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation in crime solving, when called upon. But she spends a great deal of time in Montreal, Quebec, working in the provincial forensic laboratory, and a lot of Kathy Reichs's storytelling takes place in Montreal and adjacent areas of Quebec, and I find that interesting. I'm guessing that the network wouldn't go for it because American TV viewers have no interest in anything that happens in Canada. So they made Temperance younger, more clueless about things outside her profession, relocated to her to Washington, D.C., made up completely different colleagues, and involved her with an attractive FBI agent, because a detective with the Sureté de Québec just wouldn't do on U.S. television.

If you read Dr. Reichs's novels - and I've read 7 or 8 to date - you'll find her stories longer, more complex, far more replete with scientific observation, with far more interesting and convincing dialogue, narrated by the original Temperance Brennan. You'll know a great deal about what "Tempe" thinks and feels. You'll find the crimes more baffling and the ending far less predictable. I also believe you'll notice how well Kathy Reichs can write. Her prose is excellent stuff, intriguing to read. She evokes the environs of Montreal in recent years, for example, the way Raymond Chandler evoked the streets of Los Angeles in the 1930's and 40's. Her novels - and I've read 7 or 8 as of this date - are worth the $7.99. Collins' "Bones' venture costs the same, but should sell for half that.

As a footnote, I think it would have been better had they given Temperance 2 (the one from the TV show) a different name entirely. She really is a different character and there's going to be confusion now that they've got the TV show characters in print. They're using the "Bones" logo from the TV show on the cover of "Bones: Buried Deep" and they've put Kathy Reichs's name on the cover, too, right below Max Allan Collins's. On the most recent editions of the original Kathy Reichs novels, they've also put the "Bones" television show logo on the cover to promote the books, and, needless to say, Kathy Reichs's name is on them as the author. A lot of people are going to be confused by all of this, and there would be less confusion if the TV show's Temperance were called something else - Sobriety Shannon, maybe, Virtue Donoghue or Abstinence Fitzpatrick. Maybe they should have made her of different ancestry altogether.

By all means, if you love the TV show "Bones" and you find novels based on TV shows good entertainment, you should read this book. If you're looking for quality detective fiction, you might want to skip it. But whatever you decide, please don't confuse "Bones: Buried Deep" with the novels by Kathy Reichs. Me, I'll continue to watch the TV show - it's excellent on TV - and I'll continue to read Kathy Reichs's own novels and keep them separate in my head.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Bury This Book, July 8, 2006

By 

Darla Heart "English Teacher" (Deep South) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Bones: Buried Deep (Mass Market Paperback)

I am such a fan of the TV show, "Bones," and was thrilled when I found out there was a novel based on the series. I was so disappointed in the book, that if it had not been based on "Bones," I would have thrown it in the trash after the first 20 pages. The author, Max Collins, has nothing to do with the TV show, and it is so very obvious that he has none of the education and sophistication of the show's writers. The witty and snappy dialogue is not there. He has no feel for the characters: they are shallow and one-dimensional. There is very, very little description of the forensic techniques used in the show.

And the novel was just badly written. For some bizarre reason, Collins felt it necessary to describe the clothes of each character (even characters who only appeared in one paragraph) in three choppy phrases. In a scene in a restaurant, Collins described the clothing of the hostess, the barmaid, and the waiter--and they were all wearing the same clothes.

I was so disappointed that Kathy Reichs did not write this novel and sincerely hope that when the next novel comes out, they find someone else to write it.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lame..., June 26, 2006

By 

Katherine Penrod (P-goula, MS) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bones: Buried Deep (Mass Market Paperback)

I like that the novel Tempe and TV Tempe are distinctively different characters.

I enjoy reading Kathy Reichs Novels with Tempe, the former alcoholic forensic scientist. I enjoy her relationships with her ex-husband Pete, Canadian Officer Andrew Ryan, her daughter Katy, I even love Birdie her beloved cat. She's believable.

I also enjoy watching Bones and glad it doesn't follow the novels. A movie always falls short of the novel. I like Tempe on TV as much as I like on the page. I enjoy her relationship with her staff and Agent Booth. I enjoy the fact that she has no people skills and has no knowledge of pop culture. However, not knowing who Scully is kind of blew my mind. Who doesn't know of Scully and Mulder? Temperance Brennan I guess. She's not as believable as novel Brennan but enjoyable non the less.

Anyway, I guess my point is Max Allen Collins writing is forces and nothing like either novel Brennan or TV Brennan. I was pretty disappointed. He seemed to dumb her down which is probably becuase he doesn't have the same background as Kathy Reichs. She makes the science understandable for the average layman as well as beleivable.

Sad to say Max Allen collins falls amazingly short is all areas even the pop culture references.