Absolutely brilliant thriller with a fabulous plot which I could not put down. Brilliant characters, and twists and turns. Highly recommend to other fans of this genre!!

This was a great book, i had really high hopes and i was definitely not let down. I loved the writing and all of the odd twists and turns along the way. The great return of Kathy did not disappoint

Book blurb...

It’s sweltering in Charlotte, North Carolina and Temperance Brennan, still recovering from neurosurgery following an aneurysm, is battling nightmares, migraines, and what she thinks might be hallucinations when she receives a series of mysterious text messages, each containing a new picture of a corpse that is missing its face and hands. Immediately, she’s anxious to know who the dead man is, and why the images were sent to her.

An identified corpse soon turns up, only partly answering her questions.

To win answers to the others, including the man’s identity, she must go rogue. With help from a number of law enforcement associates including her Montreal beau Andrew Ryan and the always-ready-with-a-smart-quip, ex-homicide investigator Skinny Slidell, and utilizing new cutting-edge forensic methods, Tempe draws closer to the astonishing truth.

But the more she uncovers, the darker and more twisted the picture becomes …

My thoughts…

PLOT
Perhaps not as strong as it could have been. It took a long time to investigate and get answers about the corpse and how it got into the forest. Also, I struggled to understand what the aneurysm and migraines had to do with the storyline.

PACE
Not a fast pace. Other, earlier, books by this author would have had me hooked. This one did not.

CHARACTERS
I was disappointed Ryan did not play a bigger part. As I recall from previous stories, the Ryan and Tempe team is what made the investigation exciting.

OVERALL FEELINGS ABOUT THE STORY
This will be the last Kathy Reichs I read. I was quite disappointed and would prefer a more realistic mystery plot.

4.5★s

A Conspiracy of Bones is the nineteenth book in the Temperance Brennan series by best-selling American anthropologist and author, Kathy Reichs. Life has turned upside down on anthropologist Tempe Brennan: apart from distracting family dramas and her own medical diagnosis, Ryan and Slidell have abandoned their police force jobs to start up a PI business. But most disturbing of all is that the new boss at MCME has a sizeable grudge against Tempe and is freezing her out of her usual consultancy there.

Margot Heavner, appointed after Larabee’s murder, seems to be oriented to maximum publicity at the expense of ethics. She and Tempe locked horns over the case of a murdered child, and now she is being excluded from a strange new case: a faceless, fingerless, gutless body that Heavner has already implied to the press is a murder victim.

But apparently someone wants Tempe involved: she has been sent, anonymously, pictures of the body. Tempe has another ally at the MCME, and she manages to get her own photos, a sample and information about the autopsy. And what she sees raises one puzzling question: why is Heavner lying about the body?

Can Tempe resist getting involved? If she can discreetly investigate and identify the victim, is she doing it for the right reasons? Because publicly proving Heavner wrong and ending her exile from the lab is an attractive proposition. Slidell, if initially hesitant to get involved, becomes quite interested when links to a certain missing-child cold case become apparent.

Tempe does exasperate: her tendency to jump, alone, into a potentially dangerous situation against all reasonable advice is starting to wear a little thin. However, the snappy dialogues between Tempe and Slidell, Tempe and Ryan are a joy, and there is lots of clever detective work done by both Tempe and Slidell.

This instalment features a radio shock-jock, child porn and paedophiles, conspiracy theories and the dark web, and Reichs also includes plenty of fascinating tidbits like: Zombie ants, military bunker real estate, composite imaging from DNA phenotypes and taphophobia. The notes at the end are also interesting. Virtually boneless, but still plenty to intrigue.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Australia

Another good book by Kathy.
It's been a while since I have read one of Tempe's stories, and it took me a bit to get back into the swing of our Reichs writes.
Once I did, I thoroughly enjoyed the suspense and mystery she entwines with the storyline.
Good on Tempe and looking forward to another Reichs novel very soon. I forgot how good they can be.

This is number 19 in the series. This is the first one I have read by Kathy Reich and I am very impressed. As a big fan of Bones . I cannot wait to get my hands on more of them.

Our favourite forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan is back in another exciting read. Temperance has had a hard time lately first her boss died, her niece Katy is posted overseas in a war zone, her mother has cancer and she has agreed to move in with Andrew Ryan. She knows that something is up when she sees a strange man near her house but he disappears before she can reach him. Everything changes when she is sent some photos of a crime scene but who sent them and why? She knows that she has to find out more about the body but she isn't really allowed at the lab but that won't stop her. She calls her friend Slidell if you can call him that but they do have a long history and she is hoping that he is able to help her. He is still working for the police and she knows that he will be interested in her case. But the more they dig the stranger things become and who knows who is telling the truth? What do preppers, missing children have to do with the dead guy and will they be able to find out who wanted the guy dead? Will Temperance find her way back to the lab in one piece after this strange case or will it be time for her to move on for good? One thing that she knows is that she will never stop looking for the missing children no matter what happens that is one thing that she can't stop doing. Their parents deserve closure. Another great read. I was lucky enough to receive a copy via Netgalley & the publishing house in exchange for my honest review.

Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan was suffering from the heat and cloying humidity in Charlotte, North Carolina after the unexpected diagnosis of an aneurysm and surgery. She suffered severe migraines and nightmares, but insisted she was “fine” to anyone who asked. Tempe also didn’t get along with her new boss, Dr Heavner, and was blocked out of anything that came into the morgue. But when a body was brought in, badly mutilated, then Tempe received anonymous pictures on her phone, she connected with Detective Slidell in the search to find an identity.

But there was much more to the death of this unknown male. Missing children, child trafficking, murder, drugs – it was all there. And as Tempe went off on her own (silly girl!) she found snippets of information while endangering her life. Ryan was working a PI job, so he and Tempe were only connected by phone. And Slidell was burning candles both ends.. Would they get the answers they were desperate for?

A Conspiracy of Bones is the 19th in the Temperance Brennan series by Kathy Reichs and the first published since 2015. So I was a little rusty with a 5 year break between #18 and this one. I remember Tempe as being courageous (foolish?) and tenacious – she hasn’t changed. I found A Conspiracy of Bones a little slow to get into and Tempe’s continual paranoia and self-doubt was wearing, but the tension and action ramped up in the second half. Not Ms Reichs’ best but still an enjoyable read. Recommended.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my digital ARC to read in exchange for an honest review.

A Conspiracy of Bones is the 19th book in Kathy Reichs' Temperence Brennan series and it's an amazing read. Appropriate for the ardent fan and the newbie, be prepared to be swept into a maelstrom of stress and tension.

Tempe's life, and head is full of grey. Her mother is having chemo and insists on telling Tempe the details of her love life. Her daughter is still on active duty. Her sister is off on shenanigans. She has committed to living with her lover and is terrified. Her professional life is imploding as she grieves for her dead boss and is hated by the current lab boss, who she has clashed with before. She has been having disabling migraines that are neuological nightmares before the fact that she has an unexploded aneurism in her brain is taken into account.

A renowned forensic anthropologist, she is nevertheless taken back to receive autopsy photos of a man currently in the morgue. Although she offers her services once again , the highly unprofessional Chief Medical Examiner not only refuses her services but does the job inadequately herself, following up with a media interview where she incorrectly identifies the body as Asian.

Believing that her professional life is on the line, Tempe begins her own rogue investigation. But what is real and what is her own brain tripping her up? And is she really personally at risk? And, more to the point, can she find the missing children she and Slidell have been agonising over?

Reichs did such a good job of ramping up Tempe's anxiety and passing it on to the reader at the beginning of this book that I actually had to put it down and walk away from it for a while. Props to her for great writing. On the other hand I did find that the existential angst and paranoia got in the way of the story after a while. Of all her books I found this the most patchy in tempo (although I'm marking against extremely high quality). This is not my favourite but is still very, very good.

I've been waiting a long time for this book, and I'm pleased to say I wasn't disappointed. In this book Tempe is on the outer with her new boss, and not being asked to consult on cases. So when she gets sent pictures of a corpse from an anonymous source she immediately is on the case, much to her bosses ire.

The body has been found in the woods, partially eaten by feral hogs, making ID difficult. As Tempe and Slidell start to investigate they are drawn into a world of conspiracies, missing children and underground bunkers. Who is the dead man? Is he a spy? Or something else? And who was the man loitering outside Tempe's house? Tempe is her usual dog with a bone self, and will not give up until she has answers, no matter where she ends up to get them. And end up in peril she does, again, in true Tempe fashion.

I really enjoyed this book, I love the ongoing characters, the banter, and the plot's continue to excite the reader. Kathy Reichs is the master of the cliffhanger chapter endings, making you read "just one chapter more" long into the night. The plot in this one did get slightly convoluted at points, but it was a mild irritation. All in all another great read, and I can't wait to see what Tempe gets herself into next.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Kathy Reichs is one of those authors I have been reading forever. I have read most of Kathy Reich’s forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan Books, having started somewhere in the middle of her nineteen books and jumped around.

Her most recent book #AConspiracyofBones. We see Tempe out of favour with the new medical examiner. Tempe thinks she’s all about the image without paying the position respect and she thinks she might be corrupt. Tempe’s been warned off the case of a John Doe found in the woods.

What follows is Tampe navigating an unfamiliar professional pergutory while she investigates the case without the ME’s approval. Things don’t run smoothly with the investigation, she calls in some favours, there’s a cameo from her partner Ryan, and there’s the small matter of an aneurysm confronting Tempe as well.

What appeals to me about Reich’s Tempe Brennan books is the consistency with with Reichs continues to use the formula that worked in the past while making each case fresh and new. Tempe is the focus, it’s all from her perspective, the cases are detailed, and the pacing is always good. I find this is in contrast with some of the Kay Scarpetta books by Patricia Cornwell that began to focus less on Scarpetta and casework and more on Lucy and her love life. It felt for me those books lost direction and focus somewhere in the middle.

Readers of suspense, mystery and procedural crime will appreciate the book. It’s a stand-alone but the books are related so if you’re beginning the series with this one, some history with an earlier book might be in order.

Conspiracy of Bones will be out in April Thank you to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster Australia for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book for an honest review.

I guess you had to read previous books by this author to know the characters. I found this book confusing and full of its own importance. The book was trying to be slick and clever, however there was too much information about a substandard plot related to forensic science. I did read this book to the end but I am unable to recommend it as a good read.

Thankyou to NetGalley, Simon and Schuster Australia and the author, Kathy Reichs, for the opportunity to read an advanced readers copy of A Conspiracy of Bones in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion.
While I did like the book, overall I found it didn't have the same wow factor of earlier books in the series.
Very easy to follow. A good read for that train ride to work and back.

To be honest I found this book a bit slow especially at the beginning. I felt that not much happened to make it really interesting. I kept waiting for the ah ha moment and unfortunately it never came for me. It’s a shame as I have enjoyed the series up to now.