Kathy Reichs: Bones in her Pocket

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A small dose of Bones as an appetiser
This short story/novella was basically written as an e-book appetiser for Kathy Reich's next book, "Bones for the Lost". Tempe Brennan fans will no doubt enjoy another small dose of bones ahead of the larger dose in the next book.

Kathy Reich's long time character forensic anthropologist Temperance (Tempe) Brennan is called to identify a couple of bones found in Mountain Island Lake in a remote area of Carolina. When she gets to the part of the lake where the bones were found she spots an oversize canvas bag in the water covered with flies. Of course as Tempe is involved, the bag contains a decomposing body and she sets out to find who it is and who put it in the lake.

The immediate suspect is a local environmental activist and nutcase, Herman Blount, who Tempe finds "charismatic in a Charles Manson type of way". Tempe takes on her normal super sleuth role to identify the body and the killer.

Many authors write a short story/novella as a teaser for a forthcoming full-length book. Sometimes the teaser is better than the book and vice-versa. My jury is out on this one as I felt that this time Reichs had probably tried to put too many bones in a small bag.