Book 21 in the Temperance Brennan Series

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Just in case there is any reader out there not familiar with this series (it could happen!), Temperance Brennan, the sometimes irascible, always ingenious forensic-anthropologist, ex-alcoholic, divorced mother of kick-butt Katy Peterson, is a force to be reckoned with. As she performs her medical duties (expertly and with more than a hint of dry wit), consulting on “corpses unfit for autopsy”, due to their “burned, decomposed, mutilated, mummified, or skeletal “ state, for the Medical Examiners office in Charlotte, North Carolina, Tempe stirs up her own sort of trouble, running into more than her fair share of personally-targeted danger, violence and trauma.

In this installment, Tempe must deal with a horrific parcel – a grisly eyeball of unknown origin, hand-delivered in a package left on her doorstep. Before too long, this is followed by the discovery of a human head, a whole slew of diverse and creepily-dispatched murder victims, and an odd assortment of evil, angry vengeance-seeking criminal-candidates.

Working round the clock with assistance from her handsome beau Ryan the PI, his sometime partner ex-cop-and-now-PI Erskine “Skinny” Slidell, and an ever-changing team of police and medical colleagues, Tempe must race the clock to identify a murderer whose homicidal quest appears as personal as it is gruesome.

Without giving the plot away (no spoilers here) this is a fun read, fast-paced and clever, loaded with tension, snappy characters and a truck-full of nastiness, destined to keep you reading, clocking clues and seeking literary redemption of a sort (for someone,after all, must pay for all this murderous mayhem).

With an ending mostly guessed, this reader found the finale satisfying, well-executed and pitch-perfect in tone.

A great big thank you to the publisher @simonschusterca for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.