The foot bone’s connected to
I feel a little bad about all the criticism I’ve done of Kathy Reichs’ first three novels. I hope it’s been clear that despite the shortcomings I see, I’ve enjoyed reading each of the novels. In addition to the stories themselves I’ve appreciated seeing those shortcomings disappear. Reichs’ progression as a writer has been quite gratifying.
I’m pleased to report that in her fourth Temperance Brennan novel, Fatal Voyage, Reichs’ seems to have hit her stride. The pacing and structure of the novel is engaging. Her characters have sufficient depth and complexity to hold the plot together. Are there areas of her writing that can continue to improve? Certainly. But she has successfully eliminated most of the rough areas.
This is the first of the novels where I recognized a plot element that I have seen in the Bones television show. Of course the novel was written years before the show went on air, but the areas the show and the novels have in common are few. The details of the mystery were very different, but the discovery of an unrelated body part at the scene of an air disaster, leading to a double-mystery was a device used in the episode «The Man on the Fairway» from the first season of Bones. In case you were wondering.
