This was a classic Temperance Brennan novel!

Every time you thought when Temperance was ready to leave D.C. something else just nagged at her to stay. She wanted to make sure she didn't leave a stone unturned.
To see the history of the city pulled out in this book was refreshing, and you can see that Kathy didn't leave any of those details out.

This installment in Kathy Reichs' long-running Temperance Brennan series gets a fresh angle by moving the action to Washington, DC. She is at home in Charlotte, NC, and looking forward to a long weekend with her boyfriend from Montréal when she receives a phone call requesting her help with the victims of a building fire in Washington. The building is located in Foggy Bottom, an area with a colorful history. In the thirties and forties, the home was the hangout of bootleggers and racketeers known as the Foggy Bottom Gang. After the fire is determined to be arson, the police investigation initially focuses on possible motives for the murder of one or more of the victims.

But Tempe and her new ally, telejournalist Ivy Doyle (a friend of her daughter), suspect that the fires may be tied to the building's ownership, especially after a second building belonging to the same ownership group burns down from a similar act of arson shortly after the first. Tempe shares her suspicions with the homicide detective in charge of the case, and the pair confront the suspects. The two brothers lead them to their grandmother, leading to a shocking and violent climax. But the surprises are not over. Tempe also finds her suspicions of Ivy's fiancée confirmed, and an Epilog nearly sets a final mystery to rest.

It's an exciting story, as always. That final mystery does seem like a bit of a red herring, though. A lot of narrative time is devoted to it, only to have the solution given as a kind of aside. It was not relevant to the main plot at all.

Thanks to NetGalley for the Advance Reader's Copy.

I've read almost all of the Kathy Reichs police procedural books about forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan. Very entertaining and detailed. This was no different and I really liked it. Unfortunately I waited to long to review it so I'm not doing it justice here except to say - it is a compelling mystery full of surprises. I would highly recommend.

I love all of Kathy Reichs books! Tempe is always able to step in and find out the details of what happens to bodies no matter their condition. This book is like the other's where she has a crime to solve and she will stop at nothing to find out what happened.

I absolutely love any Temperance Brennan novels I read!! I initially got into reading the series around Christmas 2020 because my roommate & I spent quarantine binge-watching the TV show Bones. Afterwards, for Christmas, I asked my mom for a few of the books from the book series and I fell in love!! In this book specifically, it did follow some of the common tropes from prior novels, but it was still an interesting book. I was engaged the entire time, and I am very grateful to have received it from NetGalley. Thank you!

Kathy Reichs does it again! Her Tempe Brennan series never disappoints! I have missed a few books in the series and I am now going back to read them. I can't wait to see what the crew get up to in the next installment!

Fire and Bones is the twenty-third book in the Temperance Brennan series. In this book, Temperance works in Washington, DC on a mysterious fire that left at least four dead.

Temperance is a strong protagonist with her intelligence, wit, and drive. I have enjoyed this series for years, and this book shows the series continues to be intriguing.

Fire and Bones is an enjoyable addition to the series. Recommended to readers who enjoy crime fiction and medical thrillers.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Temperance Brennan is back and in a new city!! I enjoyed the mystery aspect of this novel, but living with the journalist felt like filler. I also could have used some more Ryan in this novel. The original storyline was full of twist, and kept me on the edge of my seat. I can not wait until the next novel!!!

I want to thank NetGalley & Scribner for an ARC of this book.

3.5/5
A classic temperance Brennan book. I’ve now read all 23 books. This one was right on par with most I’ve read. Most chapters ending in cliff hangers keeps things moving quickly. A bit predictable twist/killer even if the motive wasn’t clear.

The following review was published or updated in several Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia newspapers and magazines in November and December 2024:

Booking a full year of reading

Review by Tom Mayer

If only us readers could just spend our days … reading. What would a year look like? Here, the editors of Home for the Holidays present their yearlong list of books, culled from the past 12 months of reading and reviewing. A few of the titles you’ll immediately recognize, and you’ll likely have more than few in your own library. But just in case you missed a title or two, we’re showcasing the whole year’s worth of books that we’ve read and reviewed, month by month.

Except for the first title, the list is simply a list. To find the reviews of many of these titles, visit our newspaper parent, The (Athens) News Courier at enewscourier.com — with a slight caveat. Our newspaper webmasters are currently working overtime to improve our content management system, the foundation of any website, and while many of our archives are now found there, it may be a few weeks before everything is fully re-uploaded — including the most recent editions of Limestone Life and Home for the Holidays. For now, though, enjoy our literary stroll through 2024.

And about that first title: Not every college professor can make statistical analysis approachable, let along interesting to their students and the general population, but Athens State University emeritus professor of psychology Mark Durm is not every college professor. After spending nearly five decades teaching thousands of students, the “ol’ psychology professor” decided that he’d best get around to writing the one book out of his nearly 100 published pieces that’s he always wanted to write. Call it a legacy piece, but what it really is is a “best of” Durm’s peer-reviewed, book reviews, non-peer reviewed and magazine articles from his 47 years in higher education.

The result is “Professional Publications of an Ol’ Psychology Professor” (Dorrance) with full previously published articles ranging from studies on the effects of glasses on a child’s self-esteem to his ever-popular parapsychology pieces, Durm presents his internationally recognized efforts with a twist.

“It’s a different kind of book because it doesn’t talk about the research, it presents the research,” the professor says from his second-career office at Durm Properties in Athens, about a half-mile from where he first presented that research in person. “I’ve spent hours on all of these articles, especially in the peer-reviewed journal articles.”

And so, articles on divorce, sex, religion and other topics now populate the pages of Durm’s most recent book in an effort to both continue his teaching and satisfy what has been a lifelong wonderment.

“You know, most people don’t understand statistics, so it’s all in there,” Durm said. “What I’m trying to do is a more critical approach to ‘just don’t believe everything you’re told.’ … It’s things that were in my life that I wanted to see if they were so, by using a psychological analysis.”

And like any good professor, Durm didn’t do that research on his own — or take all of the credit. Among the co-authors of many of his articles in the book were students — many of who he’s lost touch with, but all of whom who he credits by name in his acknowledgements and for each of who, if they look up their ol’ mentor, he has a signed book ready to hand over. For the rest of us, you can find the book at any online bookseller — just as you can with the remainder of our list, presented by the month in which the book was published, read and reviewed.

JANUARY

Unbound (Blackstone) by Christy Healy NG/F

The Devil’s Daughter by Gordon Greisman NG/ARC

FEBRUARY

Almost Surely Dead (Mindy’s Book Studio) by Amina Akhtar NG

The Chaos Agent (Gray Man 13) (Berkley) by Mark Greaney NG

The Lady in Glass and Other Stories (Ace) by Anne Bishop ARC

A Haunting in the Arctic (Berkley paperback) by C.J. Cooke NG

Ghost Island (Berkley) by Max Seeck

MARCH

Hello, Alabama (Arcadia) by Martha Day Zschock

The Unquiet Bones (Montlake) by Loreth Anne White

I am Rome: A novel of Julius Caesar (Ballantine Books by Santiago PosteguilloMarch 5: Murder Road (Berkley) by Simone St. James

The Luminous Life of Lucy Landry (Holiday House) by Anna Rose Johnson

Ferris (Candlewick) by Kate DiCamillo

After Annie (Random House, Feb. 27) by Anna Quindlen

Crocodile Tears Didn't Cause the Flood (Montag Press) by Bradley Sides The #1 Lawyer (Little, Brown and Company) by James Patterson, Nancy Allen

Lilith (Blackstone) by Eric Rickstad

Life: My Story Through History (Harper One) by Pope Francis

APRIL

Matterhorn (Thomas & Mercer) by Christopher Reich

Friends in Napa (Mindy’s Book Studio) by Sheila Yasmin Marikar

City in Ruins (William Morrow) by Don Winslow

The House on Biscayne Bay (Berkley) by Chanel Cleeton

Two Friends, One Dog, and a Very Unusual Week (Peachtree) by Sarah L. Thomson

For Worse (Blackstone) by L.K. Bowen

A Killing on the Hill (Thomas & Mercer) by Robert Dugoini

The Clock Struck Murder (Poisoned Pen Press) by Betty Webb

The Book That Broke the World (Ace) by Mark Lawrence

The Forgetters (Heyday Books) by Greg Sarris

Lost to Dune Road (Thomas & Mercer) by Kara Thomas

Warrior on the Mound (Holiday House/Peachtree) by Sandra Headed

Pictures of Time (Silver Street Media) by David AlexanderBare Knuckle (Blackstone Publishing) by Stayton Bonner

Murder on Demand (Blackstone Publishing) by Al Roker

Home is Where the Bodies Are (Blackstone) by Jeneva Rose

MAY

Matterhorn by Christopher Reich

The Hunter's Daughter (Berkley) by Nicola Solvinic

The House That Horror Built (Berkley) by Christina Henry

In our stars (Berkley) by Jack Campbell

Freeset (book 2) (Blackstone) by Sarina Dahlan

Southern Man (William Morrow) by Greg Iles

Camino Ghosts (Doubleday) by John Grisham

JUNE

Specter of Betrayal by Rick DeStefanis

Lake County (Thomas & Mercer) by Lori Roy

Serendipity (Dutton) by Becky Chalsen

Shelterwood (Ballantine) by Lisa Wingate

The (Mostly) True Story of Cleopatra’s Needle (Holiday House) by Dan Gutman

Jackpot (Penguin) by Elysa Friedland

The Helper (Blackstone) by M.M. Dewil

Winter Lost (Ace) by Patricia Briggs

Shadow Heart (Blackstone) by Meg Gardiner

Lake Country (Thomas & Mercer) by Lori Roy

The Out-of-Town Lawyer (Blackstone) by Robert Rotten

Love Letter to a Serial Killer (Berkley) by Tasha Coryell

Sentinel Berkley) by Mark Greaney

JULY

Three Kings: Race, Class, and the Barrier-Breaking Rivals Who Redefined Sports and Launched the Modern Olympic Age (Blackstone) by Todd Balf

The Night Ends with Fire (Berkley) by K.X. Song

Echo Road (Montlake) by Melinda Leigh

It’s Elementary (Berkley) by Elise Bryant

You Shouldn’t Be Here (Thomas & Mercer) by Lauren Thoman

Back In Black (Blackstone) edited by Don Bruns

The Recruiter (Blackstone) by Gregg Podolski

AUGUST

You Shouldn’t Be Here (Thomas & Mercer) by Lauren Thoman ARC

Not What She Seems (Thomas & Mercer) by Yasmin Angoe NG

Fatal Intrusion by Jeff Deaver/Isabella Maldonado

Death at Morning House (HARPERTeen) by Maureen Johnson

Fire and Bones (Scribner) by Kathy Reichs

Some Nightmares Are Real (University of Alabama Press) by Kelly Kazoo

The Brothers Kenny (Blackstone) by Adam Mitzner

Blind to Midnight (Blackstone) by Reed Farrel Coleman

The Wayside (Blackstone) by Carolina Wolff

Enemy of the State (Blackstone) by Robert Smartwood

You Will Never Be Me (Berkley) by Jesse Q. Sutanto

On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence, and Justice (W.W. Norton) by Adam Kirsch

We Love the Nightlife (Berkley) by Rachel Koller Croft

Talking To Strangers (Berkley) by Fiona Barton

An Honorable Assassin (Blackstone) by Steve Hamilton possible interview see email

Dungeon Crawler Carl (1 of 6 but see next two months) (Ace) by Matt Dinniman

SEPTEMBER

Fatal Intrusion (Thomas & Mercer) by Jeffrey Deaver and Isabella Maldonado

When They Last Saw Her (Penguin) by Marcie Rendon

American Ghoul (Blackstone) by Michelle McGill-Vargas

First Do No Harm (Blackstone) by Steve Hamilton

A Quiet Life: A Novel (Arcade) by William Cooper and Michael McKinley

One More From the Top (Mariner) by Emily Layden

No Address (Forefront Books) by Ken Abraham.

Tiger’s Tale (Blackstone) by Colleen Houck

An Academy for Liars (Ace) by Alexis Henderson

Rewitched (Berkley) by Lucy Jane Wood

Gaslight (Blackstone) by Sara Shepard and Miles Joris-Peyrafitte

Counting Miracles (Random House) by Nicholas Sparks

The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society (Ace) by C.M. Waggoner

The Hitchcock Hotel (Berkley) by Stephanie Wrobel

In the Garden of Monsters by Crystal King

Carl’s Doomsday Scenario (2 of 6 see next month also) (Ace) by Matt Dinniman

OCTOBER

The Hushed (Blackstone) by K.R. Blair NG

A Grim Reaper’s Guide to Catching a Killer (Berkley) by Maxie Dara

On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence, and Justice (Norton) by WSJ Weekend review editor Adam Kirsch

Framed (Doubleday) by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey

This Cursed House (Penguin) by Del Sandeen

The Puzzle Box (Random House) by Danielle Trussoni

Two Good Men (Blackstone) by S.E. Redfearn

Dark Space (Blackstone) by Rob Hart and Alex Segura

This Cursed House (Berkley’s open submission)by Del Sandeen

Vindicating Trump (Regnery) by Dinesh D’Souza

The Book of Witching (Berkley) by C.J. Cooke

The World Walk (Skyhorse) by Tom Turcich

The Waiting Game by Michael Connelly  ARC, possible interview see email

Beyond Reasonable Doubt (Thomas & Mercer) by Robert Dugoni

Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook (3 of 6, with bonus material) (Ace) by Matt Dinniman

Frozen Lives (Blackstone) by Jennifer Graeser Fronbush NG

Vincent, Starry Starry Night (Meteor 17 Books) intro by Don McLean

Paris in Winter: An Illustrated Memoir (PowerHouse Books) by David Coggins

NOVEMBER

The Waiting (Little, Brown) by Michael Connelly

The Teller of Small Fortunes (Penguin) by Julie Long

Shadow Lab (Blackstone) by Brendan Deneen

Trial by Ambush (Thomas & Mercer) by Marcia Clark

Devil Take It (Heresy Press) by Daniel Debs Nossiter

SerVant of Earth (Ace) by Sarah Hawley

All the other me (Blackstone) by Jody Holford

The Perfect Marriage (Blackstone reissue re-edit) by Jenny Rose

DECEMBER

Trial By Ambush (Thomas & Mercer) by Marcia Clark

The Close-Up (Gallery Books) by Pip Drysdale

The Silent Watcher (Thomas & Mercer) by Victor Methos

Leviathan (Lividian Trade HC) by Robert McCammon

The Silent Watcher (Thomas & Mercer) by Victor Method

Assume Nothing (Thomas & Mercer) by Joshua Corin

One example link:
https://enewscourier.com/2024/11/29/in-review-booking-a-full-year-of-reading/

I love Tempe whether she's in Montreal or North Carolina or anywhere in between! As always, an interesting puzzle for her to unravel. It's great to have Tempe back!

Thank you @simonsndschuster & @kathyreichs for my complimentary copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

Dr. Temperance Brennan is about to leave on a brief getaway with her longtime love interest, Andrew Ryan, when she is called to a deadly burn scene in Washington D.C. As Tempe investigates the burn scene she discovers a body that she suspects was there long before the fire.

Curious, she teams up with a journalist and begins to research the building. She discovers it was once a home to a band of criminals. Preoccupied with uncovering clues, Temperance doesn’t realize that her investigation is leading her into danger.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story which masterfully blends suspense with intricate storytelling. The author’s ability to craft original plots is impressive, and this installment is no exception. The character of Dr. Temperance Brennan is both relatable and compelling, and her dedication to uncovering the truth resonates with me. The mix of forensic science and criminal history adds depth to the narrative, making it engaging as well as intellectually stimulating. If you enjoy crime fiction, this book promises to captivate you with its rich detail, well-developed characters, and intricate plot.

I liked the DC setting the best. I love reading about all the intricacies of the capital.
The action was fast paced and kept my interest.

Tempe goes to Washington, DC to investigate a location of a fire. There is a hidden body found in the basement.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley.

Temperance Brennan is a forensic anthropologist who is called to Washington, DC to investigate a mysterious fire in the Foggy Bottom section of the city. Her job is to attempt to identify the bodies burning in an illegal AirBnB. She is reluctant to accept the assignment because she hates working fire scenes and she is planning to go on vacation with her long-time lover. Her trepidations are correct as she finds herself getting deeper into what appears tied to be criminal activity from the 30s and 40s. Could this fire be related to the Foggy Bottom Gang that was active so long ago?

I enjoyed this book and look forward to others by the author.

Fire and Bones by Kathy Reichs is a smart forensic mystery and Reich’s 23rd entry in her long-running “Bones” series, featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. Tempe is called to help the Washington DC medical examiner sort out a tragedy in the colorful Foggy Bottom neighborhood. A historic Victorian house has burned in a suspected arson fire and four bodies are found. The house has a tangled history with bootleggers, and is currently suspected of being connected to large scale organized crime activity.
The plot is involved and there are some side stories that illustrate the fascinating history of criminals in Foggy Bottom, their families, and their business doings, as well as an interesting medical mystery connected to a long ago resident of the Victorian house.
All the details of an excellent murder mystery novel are present—careful plotting, concise detailed descriptive writing about scientific details as well as personal drama, and a familiar cast of characters—Tempe, daughter Katy, long-time love interest Ryan, and PI Slidell. The characters get richer with each book in the series, and Tempe continues to grow. She is a dispassionate scientist with a sharp eye for details and a wry wit. But she also exhibits a softer, more emotional, as she reveals touching vignettes from her childhood, and ponders her romantic past with Ryan. She is a very compelling protagonist, and Reichs’ storytelling gets better and better with each book she writes.
Fire and Bones can be read as a stand-alone novel, but the experience will be richer if the reader begins with the earlier entries in the Temperance Brennan series.
This is a great read!

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the ARC. This is my honest review.

I love a good Tempe story, and this one fits the bill. Reichs keeps the story moving along with her forensic skills and storyline. This one takes place in Foggy Bottom a neighborhood in Washington DC. Tempe gets called in to help on an arson case that leads back to the Descendants of the Foggy Bottom Gang. Many twists and turns. Highly recommend.

Bones is one of those series I can always count on. After 23 books, you would think that author Reichs has run out of ideas or character growth, but YOU. WOULD. BE. WRONG! Fire and Bones follows Tempe to Washington DC's Foggy Bottom to sold an arson case that goes south when an extra body is found in the ashes. I love hearing about all the history of the area, the dips into forensics and anthropology, and all the twists and turns that come with a Bones book! I think you'll enjoy Fire and Bones more if you are a Bones reader, but I do think it can be enjoyed as a standalone novel without missing much.

A big thank you to author Kathy Reichs, Scribner, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review.

This series is always either a 4 or 5 star for but his one was a five star because is showed how much more growth the characters has come and there's just something about this series that always pulls me into it .

Another great continuation of Tempe always working hard to her best for the dead. Unfortunately, this desire to do to good does in the way of her personal relationship. This is not discussed in depth nor developed much, almost added in passing to keep the characters in relationships.

Tempe works for justice for some burn victims and one unexpected finding. She does, as usual, get in 'trouble' for going to far in her investigations.