Spider Bones by Kathy Reichs - Book Review

When looking at the books that I have read so far this year, I have mainly stuck with the romance genre. It’s the genre I love the most, as well as finding enjoyment in writing a romance. However, I do enjoy the occasional crime book. Kathy Reichs is known to be one of the most famous crime authors. She’s been writing in this genre since 1997. And the book Spider Bones is her thirteenth book in the series of Temperance Brennan. 

This book series influenced the T.V. show Bones to happen, and it lasted for twelve years. You can actually watch this series on Prime or Disney+. I might soon watch it as well. 

The novel revolves around the protagonist, Temperance Brennan. She is a forensic anthropologist and works with the police sometimes to solve crimes. She is called to check out a dead body, who they quickly find out his name is John Lowery. But there is a problem. John Lowery has actually been dead since 1968 in a Huey crash in Vietnam. The question that is bubbling in the readers and characters’ heads is, who is in John Lowery’s grave? And how did he end up in Canada? 

Temperance ends up going to Hawaii, where most of the story takes place, to re-analysis the remains in the headquarter of JPAC. Her daughter also joins her on this journey after receiving some bad news in her life. While Andrew Ryan, a Candian detective, joins the both of them a week after with his daughter. Ryan ends up sometimes helping Temperance, especially on an unrelated case that Temperance is also working on. 

By the end of it all. We learn about everything. After some worrying events that created all readers to bite their nails. 

There is always a worry for authors when they create a big series. For authors like Suzanne Collins who wrote the trilogy The Hunger Games, you have to read the first one to understand that others. Whereas Kathy Reichs now has twenty books in this series. Having a series that big gives you the complication on how to carry on a character’s story, without making readers not understand what is happening. 

I am happy to say that Kathy Reichs does this well. You do not have to read the first twelve books before reading this one. Of course, if you read the first twelve you would most likely see her daughter grow up. You’ll also be shown the relationship that happened between Temperance and Ryan. We will probably know more about the other side characters, rather than meeting them for the first time.  However, when reading this novel, we learn these things without feeling we didn’t miss anything out. 

I also really enjoyed how Reichs finished her chapters. Crime novels are known to end chapters with cliff hangers. They kind of have to because it’s the thrill of the unknown that creates the suspense which crime novels need. What I really did like is most of her chapters ended with a cliff hanger. But not always big gut-wrenching worrying cliff hangers, sometimes they were smaller cliff hangers. Yet they were so contagious that I couldn’t help but carry on reading because I really wanted to know who actually ended in Lowery’s grave. 

Saying all of that, there were some areas that I personally didn’t like. I did sometimes feel I was skipping big chunks. The reason for this was because there was a lot of abbreviations and scientific terms. Of course, this is a good thing for Kathy Reichs, it means she’s done her research. As well as that she was a forensic anthropologist before she started to write, which means she knows her stuff. However, that does affect the readers who don’t know everything in that area, such as me. She did try to break that down and help us understand, making Ryan not always know what Temperance was saying, due to working in different fields. Nevertheless, because I didn’t really understand what these terms meant, I just skimmed it all. 

Another area I wasn’t too pleased with is how the links between the two crimes are actually quite unrealistic. As a writer myself, the moment Temperance is set out to work on another crime, I knew there would be a link between the two. Why? Because we are taught that everything needs to impact your main storyline in some way. It wouldn’t make sense if Reichs included the side crime if it didn’t do anything to the main crime story. In my eyes, the two cases were so far apart at the start, that the links just don’t seem possible. 

Overall, I would say I did enjoy this novel. I finished it rather quickly, so that must mean something. I don’t know if I would buy the other books in this series. If I find them in a charity shop, as I did with this novel, then I would most likely buy them. 

Although, I do hope to find more crime novels because I truly do love them.