BONES TO ASHES

This Temperance Brennan novel begins with a flashback into Tempe’s childhood. We find what caused so much pain in her past. Her brother died at nine months old. Then her Father, sick with grief, found solace in getting drunk and died on the way home from a bar. The family moved to North Carolina where Tempe’s mother suffered from depression and Tempe made a summertime friend Evangeline. A few years later Evangeline disappears and the Aunt and Uncle that Evangeline and her little sister were staying with said just to forget about her. Tempe never did. When bones turn up that are about consistent with the age Evangeline was when she disappeared Tempe wonders if she found her friend. Meanwhile Ryan and a cold case cop nicknamed Hippo are working on a case with three missing and three dead girls. Tempe is reluctant to join in because of her past with Ryan and since Ryan has decided after seeing Tempe with Pete that he was in the way of something with Tempe’s estranged husband.

Well, Pete has plans of his own. He asks for a divorce because he intends to marry someone twenty years younger named Summer. Tempe decides that in spite of their past she can get over it and help Ryan solve the case. As in other books a lot of twists and turns arise. One of Ryan’s missing girls was killed by her father who confessed the killing to a friend right before he killed himself. One is still alive and going by a different name trying to escape bad things she did in her past. Three are dead and identified and one is still missing by the end of the book. The bones that Tempe thought were her friend’s remains still remain anonymous and the mystery of what happened to Evangeline and her little sister is solved. Personal Notes: I know I say this a lot about Kathy Reich’s books but she is full of surprises. Often when I watch mystery movies I know who’s done it before the character’s figure it out. It’s exciting to read books where a lot of the time I don’t know how all of the pieces fit together.