Bones: Buried Deep (Mass Market Paperback)

by Max Allan Collins (Author)
Key Phrases: first skeleton, crime scene unit, phone chirped, Special Agent, Vincent Gianelli, Raymond Gianelli (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
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.

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. Déjà 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 Bones to Ashes. Her website is www.kathyreichs.com.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Star (February 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416524614
• ISBN-13: 978-1416524618
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #129,878 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 68 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 (REAL NAME)

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.

10 of 12 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 (REAL NAME)

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.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wow, impressively good!!!!, April 16, 2006

By	Annie Feng (Pleasanton, CA) - See all my reviews

finished this book in one day, I juss couldn't put it down!!!-when I really should've been studying I stayed up until 1 to finish it lol. Thank you so much Collins-you brought my ready-ness back (hehe)!

I would actually say this book is better than the TV series *ha guilty*, but then of course this book is waaaaaay too long to be filmed in a single episode so I understand. It's just that, there are so many twists and turns in the novel, I did not find it predictable at all!

As for Collins' charaterization of the main characters, yes both Brennen and Booth are pretty different than from the show. Booth's physical description does not fit David Boreanaz. Booth's personality doesn't really fit either- he's actually the one who WANTS and WENT for the whole partnership thing with Brennen, but in this novel he resists it (?!).

Brennen's personality DEFINITELY does not fit either, she's so much more social and outgoing, and may I say, at times quirky, not the super-obvious anti-social Brennen we see in the series. But to be honest, I actually find myself liking this version of Brennen-hopefully our Brennen in the series would eventually transform into this one.

More revelation of both characters' inner conflicts and backgrounds. They are really sweet, Collins' nailed the tension we've always dreamed of for both of them PERFECTLY! I was literally *smiling* through the whole novel. Now we are only waiting to see that in the show.

What's so great about this novel is that it focused pretty much only on Brennen and Booth, and their tension-yeah I'm serious, you should pick it up right now if you are in Bones withdrawal-RIGHT NOW!