Spider Bones [Paperback]

Kathy Reichs (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books (2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1451624166
• ISBN-13: 978-1451624168
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (94 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,395,289 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kathy Reichs, like her fictional creation, Temperance Brennan, is forensic anthropologist for the province of Quebec. She is Vice President of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, serves on the Canadian National Police Services Advisory Council, and is one of only fifty-six forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology. A professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Dr. Reichs now divides her time between Charlotte and Montreal. Deja Dead, her debut novel, brought her fame when it became a New York Times bestseller and won the 1997 Ellis Award for Best First Novel. In 2007 Break No Bones was short- listed for the Ellis Award for Best Novel. Kathy Reichs is the inspiration for the television drama Bones; her latest novel featuring Temperance Brennan is Devil Bones. Her newest release, 206 Bones, is due out in the summer of 2009

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Compare apples to apples..., August 30, 2010

By 

Jill Meyer (United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Spider Bones: A Novel (Temperance Brennan Novels) (Hardcover)

I'm a firm believer, when reviewing a book, in comparing a book to its predecessors. In this case, it's possible, because Kathy Reichs has written 12 previous Tempe Brennan novels.

The story she writes here, which takes place in locations from Montreal to North Carolina to Hawaii, involves a whole lot of different issues. Auto-erotic deaths, MIA/KIA's from Vietnam, shark-bitten bodies, Samoan gangs, daughters-with-problems, and an inactive love life are only a few of the diverse things Reichs touches on in "Spider Bones". The thing is, that as disconcerting as all this in-coming might be to a casual Reichs' reader, her fans come to expect it from her novels. I can't exactly compare Reichs' work with, say, Leo Tolstoy's, because she doesn't write as well. No one expects her to produce "War and Peace". She writes with workman-like prose and very odd plot lines. And does so fairly well.

It would be difficult to easily describe the plot of "Spider Bones". As I wrote above, there's a whole lot of "in-coming" and the reader never knows what's coming next. Reichs has the interesting/irritating habit of ending her chapters in cliff-hanging language. It's Reichs trademark and is present in every one of her books I've read.

"Spider Bones" is a good read for the Kathy Reichs fan. It might not appeal to more casual readers, but it is a good addition to her book list.

71 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Confusing and muddled; no real story line driving it, August 28, 2010

By 

Brian Baker (Santa Clarita, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Spider Bones: A Novel (Temperance Brennan Novels) (Hardcover)

In the usual Tempe Brennan novel, we have a crime that Tempe is called in to help solve through her skills in forensic anthropology, either by clearing up an identification of an old corpse, helping determine a cause of death, or something similar.

This novel is very different. Here we have what seems to be a parade of misidentified bodies, and Brennan's trying to clear up that confusion as pretty much just a routine procedural matter. There's no "crime" involved - at least at first - and in all honesty I felt I needed a scorecard to try to keep things straight. In fact, I had to keep going back and re-reading portions of the book, because I'd lose track of who was who on the slabs. It was like a weird version of the Abbot and Costello "Who's on First" routine.

Further, I kept trying to figure out why I should really care. After all... nothing was really happening here!

This story is 302 pages long (hardback version), and it was page 191 before there was anything at all that could be called "action". Even after that, it promptly fizzled back away.

There's way too much information about the military's efforts to identify war dead; some background on the Vietnam War (more on that in a moment); a whole lot of touristy travelogue-type stuff about Hawaii - WAY too much! - and the usual "do I love him, or don't I?" stuff about her boyfriends (Make up her mind for her, Kathy. It's getting old).

As a Vietnam veteran, I can safely say that some of the passages dealing with the war lack accuracy. Kathy, there wasn't any such rank in the Army as Sp2. Specialist ratings started at Sp4, and went up from there. A "Sp2" would have been an E-2, and that rank was actually a "Private".

Well, I didn't hate it, and I do like the series, so two stars.

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars She does it again, September 6, 2010

By 

Tina "Tina" (Montreal, Quebec) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Spider Bones: A Novel (Temperance Brennan Novels) (Hardcover)

It has occured to me that Kathy Reich's books would have lots of potential to be 4 stars if only she would get off a few kicks - starting with describing, in minute and painful detail everything you can possibly want to know (and don't care about) very specific subject matters. IN this book, it is Vietnam and a huge, huge amount of geographical information about Hawaii - not to mention info on the army and their procedures. Frankly, the entire thing was one huge bore and I found myself skipping entire pages just to get to the "main storyline".

The other thing that was wrong with this book is that I got completely confused by all the dead people who may not be dead or then again may be. The amount of names being thrown around - was astounding, especially when you factor in that one person may have beem "posing" as the other one.

Finally, thanks to all of the above, the actual "thriller" and "suspense" part of the book was seriously toned down - leaving us with a huge number of pages of blah, blah - intermingled with one tiny little piece of the puzzle - it was extremely slow going.

Having said all that, Reichs has been known to write a fairly exciting whodunnit - and I could see some tiny bits of it in this book - but it is, for the most part, completely hidden in all the other stuff and frankly, I don' have the energy to dig through it all.

I also found myself wanting to pretty well smack both Tempe's and Ryan's children at some point in the storyline - both being completely annoying, not to mention ungrateful young adults who somehow ended up in beautiful Hawaii but choose to complain throughout the entire novel.

Really, the only thing I liked about this one was the humor surrounding Tempe's cat and bird - which, unfortunately, only occured at the beginning of this book.