Spider Bones

by Kathy Reichs

2011

Status

Checked out

Publication

Wheeler (2011), Edition: First Edition, 369 pages

Description

John Lowery was declared dead in 1968--the victim of a Huey crash in Vietnam. Four decades later, Temperance Brennan is called to the scene of a drowning in Quebec. The victim appears to have died while in the midst of a bizarre sexual practice. The corpse is later identified as John Lowery. But how could Lowery have died twice? Taking the remains to JPAC in Hawaii for reanalysis, Tempe is joined by her colleague and ex-lover Detective Andrew Ryan (how "ex" is he?) and by her daughter, recovering from her own tragic loss. Soon another set of remains is located, with Lowery's dog tags tangled among them. Three bodies--all identified as Lowery.--From publisher description.

User reviews

LibraryThing member retlibrary
Dull. I've read all of Reichs books, but this one wasn't worth the time. She spent a great deal of time presenting facts and info like a text book. A little of this is quite interesting, but in this book her scholarly diatribe overshadowed the plot (which was pretty thin) and the characters. I
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could have stopped reading the book at any time and not have given it a second thought. There just wasn't much to hold my interest.
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LibraryThing member allenkl
Reichs' previous fine character development is a thing of the past. This is a whole lot like "reading" a TV show. Too bad.
LibraryThing member readinggeek451
Temperence Brennan's latest case involves the identification of war dead from Vietnam. As always, the most interesting parts of the forensic anthropology information; unfortunately, there's not enough of it here. And the heavy-handed foreshadowing is getting very tiresome.
LibraryThing member cmeilink
Always a fan of Temperance Brennan, I was excited to see this new installment in the series.

Although I've always prided myself on being able to follow the tales of the bones and guess the outcome, this one did have me going. Corpses turning up of people already declared dead and buried and DNA that
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wasn't matching up proved for an interesting read.

Love the bones!
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LibraryThing member Romonko
I found this book very difficult to follow. There were a lot of story lines (almost as many story lines as there are John Lowery's (Spider) in the book). It takes place in three separate locations (Montreal, South Carolina and Hawaii) with a lot of referral back to Vietnam during the Vietnam war. I
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think that Kathy Reichs tried to cover too many issues with this book and as a result it was difficult to follow. But she can write and the tension remains high throughout, so that is why I gave the book 4 stars. The forensic detail is exactly that-detailed- and that was difficult to follow a bit too. I loved the setting in Hawaii, where most of the action takes place. I love the back and forth between Tempe and Ryan, and there is lots of that in this book. It is for a very good reason that Kathy Reichs is an award-winning author. She is good and she knows her stuff. This book is an attempt to show how living a lie can haunt a whole bunch of people for a very long time, and I think she definitely made that point. This whole series is definitely worth a read if you like good, hard-hitting mystery writing with complex plots and believable characters.
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LibraryThing member Pam1960ca
Another great Tempe Brennan story. Loved it!
LibraryThing member oldbookswine
The topic of misidentified military personnel makes this an new story for Temperance. When a body found turns out to be the body of service man from the Vietnam War the search begins to find out true identity of the person. JPAC is a real organization that the average person does not know about.
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Reichs provides good detail and yet keeps the story moving. One of the better of the series.
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LibraryThing member riverwillow
One of the reasons I keep on reading this series is because Reichs uses her own experience to fuel the plots which brings the reader a sense of authenticity which is missing from other books of this ilk, and which leaves me feeling virtuous as I feel that I learn something new with each book. Other
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than that they tick the relevant boxes of this genre and are a fast fun read. This is another interesting addition to the series and I particularly enjoyed how I was left guessing as to the true identities of each body right until the end. The sub-plot involving the two daughters also advanced Brennan's and Ryan's relationship in an unexpected way. But the series is beginning to feel a little tired and too formulaic - no I'm not contradicting myself, sometimes a book can tick just one too many boxes in the genre and I'm getting a little fed up of Brennan's life always being under threat as it doesn't always add to the plot - so it may be time for Reichs to rest the series and I see that she had a book coming out early next year with a different, but related, protagonist.
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LibraryThing member bilja
not my favourite book in the Tempe Brennan collection, although interesting, well played, surprising and so on. A guy is found as a floater in Quebec and identified as a Vietnam Hero dead in the late sixties. Many corpses and names, hard to put them together in the right connection. Taking partly
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place in Hawai, Tempy and Rayan are experiencing a sort of enlarged familty, with their own daughters first fighting and then loving eah other. On the wider themes: theft of identity, accuracy of forensic work, political influence in the investigations, how a blog can have bad effects on your beloved ones. Amazing as life itself, as always
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LibraryThing member LaPhenix
The living characters I had no trouble keeping track of, but when it came to the dead ones I was a bit confused. The twists and turns seemed a little more predictable in this book, but I still love the lady.
LibraryThing member mikedraper
Dr. Tempe Brennan must solve a number of puzzles in this novel.

She is called to the scene of a drowning near Montreal, Canada. She finds the victim is wrapped up in a manner that suggests an auto erotic sexual fetish.

Through his fingerprints, the vic is identified as John Lowery. Remarkably, when
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U.S. authorities are notified, they state that Lowery was killed in Vietnam, forty years ago.

When Canadian officials notify Lowery's family about finding his body, Lowery's father demands to know who is burried in his son's grave and why does Canada assume that his son was a deserter.

The author's writing style is very descriptive which makes the reading experience greater. Tempe describes Lowery's father, his "...eyes were what grabbed you, black as wormholes in space. His gaze seemed to laser straight into your soul.'

Brennan travels to Hawaii with the exhumed body. She goes to the U.S. military command that tries to recover Americans who are missing from military actions.

In an interesting subplot, Tempe assists in identifying bones found by divers. She finds that the bones are of an adolescent who is later identified. Now authorities must investigate if the teen died in a shark attack or was murdered.

Another complication arises when another set of remains is discovered with Lowery's dog tags. Who are the other two people whose remains are found?

The author also deals with the important issue of the government attempting to recover and identify remains of Americans lost in conflicts.

I enjoyed the novel and the manner in which Tempe attempts to solve the mystery by her intelligence and not by resorting to violence as happens in many thrillers.
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LibraryThing member ct.bergeron
After discovering a floater in a lake in Quebec, Temperance Brennan is taken all the way to Hawaii to try to identified the remain found. The body was identified as being John Lowery (spider), but records show that he was killed in the war over 40 years prior.
From identification to identification,
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spiced with gangbanger dead by shark and the friction between her daughter and Ryan's. Temperance will manage to get to the end of this story.
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LibraryThing member agkeery
I found this book difficult to follow at times. It got better towards the end, but Kathy Reichs seems to have taken a different turn with her adventures and unfortunately its not for the better. I remember how hooked I was on the first few Brennan Books, I just don't get that page turning feeling
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anymore.
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LibraryThing member jenniferthomp75
Fun, fast-paced book about DNA, the Vietnam War and family. Although the book moves rapidly, at times I couldn't keep all of the characters straight. I think if there had been half as many characters, the book would've been much stronger.
LibraryThing member PortiaLong
My spouse picked this up at the library as we are both fans of the TV show Bones (it's practically the only show on television I ever made it a point to get home to watch).

My first statement on seeing the title was: "Spiders don't have bones...they're arthropods." (Does this reveal something about
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my science-geekdom?)

The book is a quick easy read. The science is fine and, I think, adequately explained for a layperson (can't answer as to the history/ geography but I'm willing to assume that the author did her homework). My spouse and I were both a little thrown by the differences in Temperance Brennan's history and personal attributes in the book vs. the TV series, but that is understandable. (Although the reference to the TV show in Chapter 31 was a little...um...much?)

Overall, no major complaints. A book to borrow from the library to pass the time but I don't feel the need to rush out and buy the entire series.
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LibraryThing member arin3371
After discovering a floater in a lake Brennan is taken all the way to Hawaii to try to identified the remain found. The body was identified as being John Lowery but records show that he was killed in the war over 40 years ago.
From identification to identification, spiced with dead by shark and the
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problem between her daughter and Ryan's. they will manage to get to the end of this story.
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LibraryThing member jackravi
I wouldn't say the book is great, its alrite...
Perhaps I was expecting more, I enjoyed watching Bones.. maybe that's why i am
biased...
LibraryThing member redheadish
Read this in 2011 after finding 3 of Reichs books at a thrift and buying then reading out of sequence I relized I had to read them all in order! I just love Kathy Reichs books! I have never read so many books in so little time all 13 in 5 months time. I know that is nothing for some people but for
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me its amazing. still waiting for the next one to come out in Aug 2011
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LibraryThing member smik
Kathy Reichs' work has a considerable following, increased by the fact that her titles are the basis of the popular television series Bones.

The forensic and medical detail that makes the Bones series popular is probably the aspect that I liked least about MORTAL REMAINS, and at times felt
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overwhelming and a little too graphic. Underneath is a good story line: the victim of a helicopter crash in Vietnam in 1968 is buried with military honours in his hometown in North Carolina. Four decades later Tempe Brennan is called to a drowning in Quebec. The fingerprints say this victim is the man who died in Vietnam. When Brennan goes to Honolulu to solve this puzzle, she learns that this is not the only ID mixup caused by inadequate forensic procedures in the 1960s.

As you will have noticed, this audio book was an abridged version. So I am not sure what was left out. I'm not sure either why it was abridged. The "full length" recording is barely 2 hours longer. The abridged version of MORTAL REMAINS was shortlisted for a Crime Fest 2011 audio award.

MORTAL REMAINS is #13 in the Temperance Brennan series and I can really only be said to have dabbled in the series. Although it appears that each book can stand on its own, there are obviously continuing threads, particularly in personal relationships between Dr. Temperance Brennan and other characters - lovers, her daughter, colleagues - that will add more meaning.
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LibraryThing member Kingray
Too much technical description that distracts from the flow of the story
LibraryThing member sammier
After reading the other reviews I really didn't think I'd like this book as much as I did. I found the story line interesting and it kept me hooked and guessing right to the end. I thought it was a little like Bones meets Hawaii Five-O. I agree that the action scenes weren't as involved as they
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perhaps could be, and at times felt that they could have been expanded on more. On the other hand I found the detailed info on the way MIA's are found, brought home and identified really interesting. Perhaps it's fair to say that this book had a different feel to the previous Tempe books, but it was still a good read.
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LibraryThing member gypsysmom
In this book Dr. Brennan is called to examine a floater found in a pond near Montreal. The first cop on the scene took fingerprints which identified the body as an American, John Lowery, who was killed in Vietnam in 1968. Trying to determine how this body could belong to someone identified as dead
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takes Temperance back to South Carolina and then to Hawaii. Hawaii is where the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) is situated. There is a lot of detail about how JPAC does its work, detail that Reichs knows well because she was an external consultant for a time. The difficulty of identifying remains that old can not be overstated.

There is a not very subtle message about the horror of war in this book. Temperance is accompanied to Hawaii by her daughter, Katy, who has been hit personally by the carnage inflicted by war. It is admirable that the US expends so much effort to bring back and identify the bodies of people killed in the various wars but wouldn't it be so much better if the wars never happened at all?

Temperance's love life hasn't resolved itself. Detective Ryan and his daughter Lily also ended up in Hawaii at Temperance's invitation but their romance did not take off. However, Tempe knows Ryan is interested and maybe in the future they will get back together.

As usual, there is a lot of scientific detail in the book which I found fascinating, especially the explanation of how the DNA from the floater could not be matched to that of Harriet Lowery, John Lowery's mother.
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LibraryThing member devenish
Stated quite simple,this is a mess,a complicated,acronym ridden mess.
At her best Reichs writes exciting and very readable books but this one stinks. If you can follow the story-line with interest,then I admire you,because I certainly can't. managed to finish it by sheer will-power.
LibraryThing member LMHTWB
Tempe Brennan is once again confronted with a strange case -- a dead man in drag found in a lake in Canada, the same man who died in Vietnam. So, she heads to Hawaii to solve this mystery.

In the plus column, for this installment, the characters are more themselves and more rounded than in the last
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few volumes. There is a better balance between forensic information and story flow -- only moderate paragraphs of information instead of pages. Ryan's daughter and Tempe's daughter provide a bit of light relief at times.

And now the negatives. There are several passages where the editor slept. Normally this wouldn't be a problem but it was in key areas towards the end. I'm still not thrilled with the characters -- they are better than the last book, but not nearly as interesting or real as in the first few books of this series. My biggest complaint with this book is the solution to the mystery. Could it happen? Yes. Could I be struck by lightning in my house while typing this? Probably more likely than the ending. The only explanation I have for this ending is that Reichs hadn't used it before.

Overall, this was better but not good. Honestly, I do wonder if Reichs is putting all her energies into the series Bones and these books are just to fulfill a contract with her publisher.
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LibraryThing member BellaMiaow
Definitely not one of the best of the series. The science plot twist was a bit of a surprise, but the "who is this guy?" was telegraphed (for me, at least) pretty early on. I'm fairly tired of the on again, off again love thing with Ryan, but the depiction of Brennan's relationship with her young
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adult daughter is very accurate to this mother of a 20-year-old. Bringing in the "gangsta" angle seemed ridiculous to me, but I suppose there had to be some immediate danger somewhere to keep the publisher interested.I still enjoy the television show Bones far more than the novels, which is unusual - but the show has more humor. I don't think I'd read novelizations based on the show, however, because a lot of the humor requires the chemistry between the actors as well as good scriptwriting. There are few authors who can translate that from screen to text.
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Language

Original publication date

2010

Physical description

369 p.

ISBN

1439102406 / 9781439102404

Barcode

1601531

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