Pathologist Tempe Brennan works half her time in Canada and half in the US but this book commences at the unearthing of a mass grave in Guatemala. At the end of the day twenty bodies, mostly women and child, have been recovered. That is when a call comes in to say two of her colleagues have been shot. One is dead, and the other clinging to life. When Tempe returns to the city a local police officer seeks her out to help in another mystery, a girl's body in a septic tank. This is part of an ongoing investigation into the disappearance of four missing girls. Apart from the abundance of characters and seemingly unrelated cases the problems are all solved and as usual with Riechs work they are connected. Needless to say Brennan's emotional life gets a mention when Montreal cop Andrew Ryan joins the investigation. If there are any criticisms of this novel it is in the lengthy explanations of technical origin such as DNA and stem cell research. Reichs also spends time describing locations.
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The review of this Book prepared by Penny
Scribner, July 2002, 25.00, 336 pp.
ISBN 0684859734
Between the years of 1962-1996, Guatemala was involved in a bloody civil war and many of the peasants who were thought to be rebels were killed or disappeared. In the present, the government is now sending in forensic teams to find and identify the victims so they can be given a proper burial. Dr. Temperance Brennan, a famous forensic anthropologist, is one of the members who are trying to sort out the body parts on the site of a massacre.
While doing her work, she is asked by an honest policeman to examine the body of a woman who was found in a septic tank. It seems that in the past few months, four young women have gone missing and the authorities fear they have a serial killer on their hands. While working the case, Temperance finds herself in danger from an unexpected source and only a miracle will save her life.
Kathy Reichs is a fantastic writer of crime thrillers and her latest work GRAVE SECRETS is even better than usual because of its locations. Based on facts and true events, readers get an inside look at a Central American country where genocide on the local people occurred for more than three decades. Temperance is the kind of heroine most women aspires to be.
Harriet Klausner
The review of this Book prepared by Harriet Klausner