The Bone Code

The Bone Code by Kathy Reichs is no. 20 in the Temperance Brennan series. This novel is set in 2021, supposedly after the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Temp is working in Charleston, North Carolina, when a hurricane hits the area. When a friend asks her to come to Charleston in South Carolina to assist after the storm damaged her home Temp agrees, but before she leaves she meets an elderly woman who shows her photos of her identical twin plus a photo of her grandmother and great aunt, also identical. There is also a photo of a death mask with the same face. Could it have belonged to the great aunt who disappeared many years ago? Temp is intrigued with the likenesses of the four women and agrees to investigate.

However, on the way to South Carolina she receives a phone call from the Charleston County Coroner who asks her to come and investigate two bodies in a container that have been washed up on the beach during the storm. This brings back memories of a similar case she had investigated in Quebec fifteen years earlier when two bodies were washed ashore in a container. The identity of the two people was never discovered. In Quebec Temp and her partner, Andrew Ryan, work together to try and find the identity of the four bodies and why they were murdered.

Kathy Reichs always provides technical detail of the medical investigations conducted by Temp and others in her novels and in The Bone Code she provides detail about the different uses of DNA for research. The reader can also be provided with medical information relating to other cases Temp is working on. When this story begins Temp is trying to determine the age of a body which may be of a young teenager or of someone in her twenties. She concludes that the victim had Silver-Russell Syndrome (Russell Silver Syndrome in Australia), a rare condition that a family member of mine has.

I was uncomfortable with one part of the plot when it was discovered that experimentaion had occurred with some medical procedures. With some people propogating conspiracy theories about vaccination, this could be considered unfortunate timing for this plotline.

However, I became so involved in reading this novel that I was surprised to discover that it was 12.45 in the morning and maybe it was time for bed. I look forward to the next installment in this series.

As a side note, there are also mentions of Australian people and objects in this book - Mary Mackillop, vegemite and the didgeridoo.