Cross Bones by
Kathy Reichs
pbk out July 05
(Heinemann)
at £11.99
Another of the immensely popular Kathy Reichs' novels, which are really
fictional plots grafted on to autobiography, as both the author and her
heroine Tempe Brennan are forensic anthropologists, employed both in
North Carolina and Montreal, their jobs being the examination of
decomposed and skeletal human remains, mainly to establish identity and
to assist in determining the time and cause of death.
In this book, Kathy has jumped on the 'Jesus band-wagon' in a big way
and although she mentions the Da Vinci Code , in a slightly patronising
way, one cannot help suspect that the success of such conspiracy yarns
was not unconnected with this book. The series also seems to owe a little
to Patricia Cornwell, in that both use a fiesty female forensic lady with a
daughter and a senior detective for a bloke.
Dr Reichs has done a phenomenal amount of research into Israeli
archeological finds, which are always ripe for allegations of concealment.
The murder of a Montreal Jewish dealer in antiquities leads to a
convoluted tale about the excavation of Masada, the last stronghold of
Jewish resistance to the Romans. A photograph of a skeleton which was
omitted from official reports of the excavations falls into Tempe's hands
and the actual bones turn up in a Canadian monastery. The allegation is
that they may be the bones of Jesus, who survived the crucifixion and
lived long enough to die as one of the defenders of Masada.
Tempe goes to Israel, with her man-friend, Detective Ryan and becomes
embroiled in dirty doings in Jerusalem, where she finds yet another
skeleton in a tomb alleged to belong to the Jesus family, which has a nail-
hole in the ankle bone.
Though I enjoy her books immensely, I feel that parts of them read like
verbatim extracts from a forensic textbook, but maybe that's because it's
a busman's holiday for me. In this one, I greatly admired how Dr Reichs
took a series of authentic archeological publications, all of which is
referenced for the doubters, and built this ingenious story around them;
even the ending has an ambiguous let-out for those conspiracy lovers who
would like to think that at least some of it is true.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
