Monday Mourning by Kathy Reichs

Hours later I'd finished a skeletal inventory on LSJML-38426. The remains were complete save for the hyoid, a tiny U-shaped bone suspended in the soft tissue of the throat, and several of the smaller hand and foot bones. Long bones continue to increase in lenght as long as their epiphyses, the small caps at each end, remain separate from the bone itself. Growth stops when a bone's epiphyses unite with its saft. Luckily for the anthropologists, each set of epiphyses marches to its own clock. By observing the state of development of the arm, leg and collarbones, I was able to narrow my age estimate. I'd requested dental X-rays so I could observe molar root development, but already I had no doubt. The girl in the crate had died between ages of sixteen and eighteen.

This is the second book I've read from Kathy Reichs, and I'm still not sure if I like her books. Reichs is a forensic anthropologist for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for the state of North Carolina, and for the Laboratorie de Sciences Joduciares et de Medecine Legale for the province of Quebec. Funnily enough, so is the main character in her books, Temperance Brennan. Lot of her books seem contain large quantities of detailed descriptions of composed bodies and bones and carbon dating and this time also geography and history of Montreal.

That is the boring bit - largely I'm not interested in pages of detailed description on how carbon 14 dating works - just tell me you've done it and tell me the results. Also I'm not interested in the layout of the morgue and what door goes where -if it matters, just tell me you work in this room and the others work in other rooms. But Monday Mourning still wasn't a bad book - especially after most of the boring background work had been sorted out and what remained was a detective story, it wasn't a bad one. There were maybe a bit too many plots going on - two crime investigations, Tempe's personal relationship going to rocks, and her best friend visting because of similar reasons. Still, the book held together right to the end, and had me turning the pages especially in the last 50 pages or so.

Posted by kolibri at 17 July 12:42, 2004