ABOUT THE BOOK:
The 20th novel in the bestselling Temperance Brennan Series
THE BONE CODE
by Kathy Reichs
“I await the next Kathy Reichs thriller with the same anticipation I have for the new Lee Child or Patricia Cornwell. The Bone Code over-achieves. Temperance Brennan uses all her skills as a forensic anthropologist to solve a murder mystery story that races across America at the speed of fright.”
—James Patterson
“The Bone Code is a brilliant entry in a ground-breaking series and does Temperance Brennan proud. The story has all the elements we’ve come to expect—it’s smart, gripping, and builds to a heart-stopping crescendo. More than twenty years ago, these wonderful novels began paving the way for other writers, especially Canadians like me, to be noticed. I owe Kathy and Tempe a debt of gratitude, not just for helping make my own writing life possible but for hours of white-knuckle reading.”
—Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author
#1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with her twentieth gripping novel featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan in THE BONE CODE (Scribner; on sale: July 6, 2021). A riveting and twisty mystery that combines Reichs’s incomparable knowledge of forensic anthropology with the ripped-from-the-headlines plotting that has marked Reichs as a true master of the genre, and is sure to have readers clamoring for the next twenty years of Tempe.
(OVER)
On the way to hurricane-ravaged Isle of Palms, a barrier island off the South Carolina coast, forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan receives a call from the Charleston coroner. The storm has tossed ashore a medical waste container. Inside are two decomposed bodies wrapped in plastic sheeting and bound with electrical wire. Tempe recognizes many of the details as identical to those of an unsolved case she handled in Québec years earlier. With a growing sense of foreboding, she travels to Montreal to gather evidence.
Meanwhile, health authorities in South Carolina become increasingly alarmed as a human flesh-eating contagion spreads. So focused is Tempe on identifying the container victims that, initially, she doesn’t gather how their murders and the pestilence may be related. But she does recognize one unsettling fact: someone is protecting a dark secret—and willing to do anything to keep it hidden.
An absorbing look at the sinister uses to which genetics can be put, and featuring a cascade of ever-more-shocking revelations, THE BONE CODE is Temperance Brennan’s most astonishing case yet—one the gives new meaning to today’s headlines.
About the Author
Kathy Reichs’s first novel Déjà Dead, published in 1997, won the Ellis Award for Best First Novel and was an international bestseller. The Bone Code is Kathy’s twentieth entry in her series featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. Kathy was also a producer of Fox Television’s longest running scripted drama, Bones, which is based on her work and her novels. One of very few forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, Kathy divides her time between Charlotte, North Carolina, and Montreal, Québec. Visit her at KathyReichs.com or follow her on Twitter @KathyReichs.
Additional Advance Praise for THE BONE CODE
“Kathy Reichs is expert at making science both scary and thrilling, and she’s in top form in The Bone Code. The story moves at such a relentless pace I couldn’t stop turning the pages!”
—Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author of Choose Me
“Over the course of twenty books, Kathy Reichs and Tempe Brennan have thrilled readers with pacey, mazey tales grounded in real science, with plots springing from the author’s prodigious knowledge and passion for truth and justice. We readers are truly grateful—and looking forward to the next twenty!”
—Ian Rankin, New York Times bestselling author of the Inspector Rebus novels
THE BONE CODE
A Temperance Brennan Novel
by Kathy Reichs
Scribner | Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Hardcover | $ 27| 368 pp | ISBN: 9781982139964
On sale: July 6, 2021
Talking Points for Kathy Reichs and THE BONE CODE
In an interview, Kathy can discuss:
· Twenty years of Tempe: The Bone Code is the 20th novel in Kathy’s bestselling Temperance Brennan series, which was the inspiration for Fox Television’s longest-running scripted drama Bones. Kathy can discuss this milestone achievement, how the series (and forensic anthropology in general) have changed over the past two decades, and what is in store for Tempe in the future.
· Inventing a pandemic: In The Bone Code, a new pandemic is ravaging the population of South Carolina – a pandemic of mysterious origins that becomes integral to unraveling the case at the center of the novel. Kathy can discuss how she invented this fictional pandemic, and how its presentation in the novel changed in the wake of COVID-19.
· Vaccine production and editing the human genome: As the novel progresses, Tempe becomes suspicious of an international pharmaceutical company that produces flu vaccines, and the connections that company and those vaccines may have to the murders she is investigating. Could her suspects be using the vaccine to alter the DNA of the recipients? Kathy can give an overview of how vaccines are produced and disseminated, and how, at least in fiction, they could be used as a weapon.
· Genetic testing: Direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies like 23 And Me have become increasingly popular in the last several years, and genetic testing has been used to solve high-profile cold cases like that of the Golden State Killer. In The Bone Code, a testing company that claims to be able to tell you if you are susceptible to the new pandemic enters Tempe’s orbit, and may be the connection she needs to crack the case. Kathy can talk about how genetic testing works, the ways it has been employed in forensic anthropology and law enforcement, and what possibilities—and consequences—may be revealed in the future.
· Forensic anthropology in the news: As one of a very small number of certified forensic anthropologists, Kathy is uniquely qualified to comment on current events that involve forensic anthropologists. Kathy is happy to be interviewed as an expert on any timely news stories.
