Currently (as of 6/28/16) you can get these Temperance Brennan novels and novellas by real-life forensic pathologist Kathy Reichs for $3 or less. Audiobook fans, note that the Audible editions of the two novellas are currently priced at just $1.95 each and are a great, low-risk way to give this popular thriller series a try.
Bones of the Lost: A Temperance Brennan Novel (4.5/5 stars, currently priced at $2.99)
#1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with her sixteenth riveting novel featuring forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan, whose examination of a young girl killed in a hit and run in North Carolina triggers an investigation into international human trafficking.
When Charlotte police discover the body of a teenage girl along a desolate stretch of two-lane highway, Temperance Brennan fears the worst. The girl’s body shows signs of foul play. Inside her purse police find the ID card of a prominent local businessman, John-Henry Story, who died in a horrific flea market fire months earlier. Was the girl an illegal immigrant turning tricks? Was she murdered?
The medical examiner has also asked Tempe to examine a bundle of Peruvian dog mummies confiscated by U.S. Customs. A Desert Storm veteran named Dominick Rockett stands accused of smuggling the objects into the country. Could there be some connection between the trafficking of antiquitiesand the trafficking of humans?
As the case deepens, Tempe must also grapple with personal turmoil. Her daughter Katy, grieving the death of her boyfriend in Afghanistan, impulsively enlists in the Army. As pressure mounts from all corners, Tempe soon finds herself at the center of a conspiracy that extends all the way from South America, to Afghanistan, and right to the center of Charlotte. “A genius at building suspense” (Daily News, New York), Kathy Reichs is at her brilliant best in this thrilling novel.
Break No Bones: Temperance Brennan Book 9 (4/5 stars, currently priced at $1.99)
From bestselling author Kathy Reichs a book set in Charleston, South Carolina, the center of a lucrative, clandestine, sophisticated trade in body parts, the kind that leaves the donor dead.
Summoned to South Carolina to fill in for a negligent colleague, Tempe is stuck teaching a lackluster archaeology field school in the ruins of a Native American burial ground on the Charleston shore. But when Tempe stumbles upon a fresh skeleton among the ancient bones, her old friend Emma Rousseau, the local coroner, persuades her to stay on and help with the investigation. When Emma reveals a disturbing secret, it becomes more important than ever for Tempe to help her friend close the case.
The body count begins to climb. An unidentified man is found hanging from a tree deep in the woods. Another corpse shows up in a barrel. There are mysterious nicks on bones in several bodies, and signs of strangulation. Tempe follows the trail to a free street clinic with a belligerent staff, a suspicious doctor, and a donor who is a charismatic televangelist. Clues abound in the most unlikely places as Tempe uses her unique knowledge and skills to build her case, even as the local sheriff remains dubious and her own life is threatened.
Tempe’s love life is also complicated. Ryan, her current flame, has come down to visit her from Montreal, and Pete, her former husband, is investigating the disappearance of a local woman—and he and Tempe are staying in the same borrowed beach house. Ryan and Pete compete for her attentions, and Tempe finds herself more distracted by her feelings for both men than she expected.
Break No Bones is a smart, taut thriller featuring the kind of high-stakes crime that makes the headlines every week. Reichs, the inspiration for the hit Fox TV show Bones, is writing at the top of her form, and Tempe has never been more compelling.
Bones on Ice: A Novella – Kindle Single – Temperance Brennan (4.5/5 stars, currently priced at $1.99 in Kindle format 118pp, $1.95 in Audible format 3 hrs 28 minutes)
It is called the “death zone”: the point on Everest, nearly five miles high, above which a climber cannot be rescued. More than 250 souls have lost their lives there. Most of the bodies remain, abandoned, frozen in place.
When an earthquake leads to a miraculous recovery, Dr. Temperance Brennan is hired to identify a frozen, mummified human corpse. The victim is the daughter of a wealthy Charlotte couple who never got the chance to say good-bye. But far from offering solace and closure, Tempe’s findings only provoke more questions.
What happened on Mount Everest? Was the young woman’s death an accident? Why aren’t the other climbers talking? And how far will those hiding the truth go to make sure the past stays buried?
Note that the Kindle version also includes a preview of Speaking in Bones.
Swamp Bones: A Novella – Temperance Brennan (4.5/5 stars, currently priced at $1.99 in Kindle format 98pp, $1.95 in Audible format 2 hrs 56 minutes)
Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan returns in a chilling original short story from number-one New York Times best-selling author Kathy Reichs. In the prequel to Reichs’s upcoming thriller Bones Never Lie, Tempe takes a much-needed vacation – but murder follows wherever she goes.
Although a trip to Florida is supposed to be about rest and relaxation, there’s no such thing as a day off for Dr. Temperance Brennan. She has come to visit her friend, a dedicated ornithologist who’s researching the threat that intrusive Burmese pythons pose to indigenous bird species in the Everglades.
While sorting through the stomach of an eighteen-foot specimen, they make a disturbing discovery: bones that are unmistakably human. And when Tempe spots the telltale signs of murder by a very different kind of predator, she’s drawn into a case with its roots in the darkest depths of the swamp.
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