Too much forensics spoils the plot

BOOK OF THE DAY: 206 BonesBy Kathy Reichs, William Heinemann 303pp; £18.99

IT IS a truth universally acknowledged that a thriller heroine in possession of all the skills required to nail the bad guys must be in want of a sense of humour. Such heroines must be dourly effective if they are to compete in a man’s world of carnage and mayhem, especially as it’s generally men who are causing the mayhem, which is usually directed against women.

So runs the popular perception, although Kathy Reichs's series protagonist, the forensic anthropologist Dr Temperance Brennan, lends the lie to that canard. 206 Bonesis Brennan's 12th outing, in which she assists Det Andrew Ryan in linking a number of cases of murdered old women, all the while trying to uncover the source of the malicious rumours undermining her professional reputation. Set for the most part in a snow-blanketed Quebec, the story also finds Brennan in something of a romantic tizzy as she struggles with her better judgment to keep the quietly persistent Ryan, a former lover, at arm's length.

Sympathetic and likeable, Brennan is not a typical thriller heroine. Although highly skilled in a number of forensic sciences, she is not proficient in martial arts, weaponry or constructing mini-nuclear bombs. In 206 Bones, Brennan juggles a complicated family life, office politics and the everyday hassles of her job, even as the corpses pile up. She is given to pithy putdowns, often directed at her own shortcomings.

What's particularly fascinating about any given Reichs novel is its context. The author is herself qualified in a number of forensic disciplines, is regularly called upon to give expert testimony in court cases, and has previously worked with the UN and the US military. The Temperance Brennan novels provided the inspiration for the TV series Bones, for which Reichs serves as producer "to keep the science honest", and in which the heroine, Temperance "Bones" Brennan, writes novels about a fictional anthropologist called Kathy Reichs.

It's all pleasingly meta-fictional, and Reichs's tale of lethal male violence against vulnerable women – with the implicit promise of its ceasing, of course – makes for the proverbial page-turner if you are a fan of minute forensic detail of the CSI Miamischool. That's a big if, however. Reichs is on record as saying she is "fastidiously conscientious" about getting the science right, but readers who prefer their thrillers more streamlined may find themselves skipping whole pages of presumably accurate but stultifying descriptions of crime scene procedure and the latest advances in lab technology.

With the narrative flow repeatedly interrupted by such digressions, Reichs commits a cardinal sin for a thriller writer. With almost 80 pages to go, and to remind the reader of why the forensics are so important, the author has her heroine question herself about the possible connections between cases, a seemingly interminable series of queries that runs, with short breaks, for 30 or 40 pages.

In turn, the forensics become increasingly important as the denouement approaches, which results in a slowing of the story’s pace as it heads for its climax.

While a certain amount of jargon is understandable, the reason for the excessive use of terminology is made crudely explicit in the awkward diatribe against “junk science” that comprises the final pages.

Declan Burke is a writer and journalist. He is the editor of Crime Always Pays, an online resource supporting Irish crime writing