Tag: Bones

‘Fire and Bones,’ by Kathy Reichs

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books

This upcoming novel in the Temperance Brennan series will be released on August 6, 2024. As I said in my post about Rhett Revane’s upcoming novel Ditch Weed, I won’t be first in line to purchase my copy due to my beauty sleep requirements, and besides, I haven’t done a long-line-in-the-middle-of-the-night mission since the wild and crazy Harry Potter days.

I’ve read all (or mostly all) of Kathy Reichs’ novels. I haven’t slowed down even though “Bones,” the TV series based on the book hasn’t aired in prime time since 2017 after running for 246 episodes over twelve seasons. [You can read a brief 2017 interview with Reichs about the end of the series here.]

From the Publisher

“New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with a twisty, unputdownable thriller featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, who finds herself at the center of a Washington, DC, arson investigation that spawns deepening levels of mystery and, ultimately, violence.

“Always apprehensive about working fire scenes, Tempe is called to Washington, DC, to analyze the victims of a deadly blaze and sees her misgivings justified. The devastated building is in Foggy Bottom, a neighborhood with a colorful past and present, and Tempe becomes suspicious about the property’s ownership when she delves into its history.

“The pieces start falling into place strangely and quickly, and, sensing a good story, Tempe teams with a new ally, telejournalist Ivy Doyle. Soon the duo learns that back in the thirties and forties the home was the hangout of a group of bootleggers and racketeers known as the Foggy Bottom Gang. Though interesting, this fact seems irrelevant—until the son of a Foggy Bottom gang member is shot dead at his home in an affluent part of the district. Coincidence? Targeted attacks? So many questions.

“As Tempe and Ivy dig deeper, an arrest is finally made. Then another Foggy Bottom Gang-linked property burns to the ground, claiming one more victim. Slowly, Tempe’s instincts begin pointing to the obvious: somehow, her moves since coming to Washington have been anticipated, and every path forward seems to bring with it a lethal threat.”

You can learn more about Reichs on her website here.  Here’s a sample. (“Dr. Reichs is one of only 100 forensic anthropologists ever certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology. She served on the Board of Directors and as Vice President of both the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and the American Board of Forensic Anthropology and is currently a member of the National Police Services Advisory Council in Canada. She is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.”)

-Malcolm

Fate’s Arrows is the fourth book in Malcolm R. Campbell’s “Florida Folk Magic Series.” It’s available in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, and audio editions.

Friday’s potpourri

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Potpourri5 Comments

Yeah, I know, I’m supposed to save these news roundup posts until Sunday, but the week’s been strange.

  • We moved into this house, which we built new, in 2014, and since then the land has destroyed three mowers, leaving us with nothing at present to mow the lawn with. So, the fourth tractor is on order. If it weren’t for the continuing supply chain woes, some or all of these mowers could have been repaired–if anyone could get parts or employees to accomplish the task. Our mowers really weren’t built for such rough land or such high grass. So, they break down even though they’re nighly rated. Yes, we’re the 5th generation of the family to live here, but we didn’t expect that maintaining “the lawn” would become such a chore.
  • When “Bones” began airing on TV in 2005, my wife and I watched all the episodes. Now, with our “regular” TV shows on hiatus for the summer, we’re watching them again when we can’t find an old movie that fits our mood. The show is loosely based on the books and career of forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs. After all these years, I finally became curious about her novels of which there are over thirty. So, I ordered the latest for a change of pace, reading-wise. Now I’ll find out how the Temperance Brennan in print compares with the Temperance Brannan on TV played by actress Emily Deschanel. This will be a change from Winterkill and The Watchmaker of Dachau. I’m looking forward to something that’s new to me.
  • I’ve finally found a way to include short excerpts from my novels on my limited-space website. I’ve stolen half of the ABOUT page. I decided nobody needed to know that much about me when they did need to know more about the flavor of the books. The HOME page now has a picture of a book with the word “excerpt” superimposed over it that links to the current excerpt. I began with Fate’s Arrows, the most recent novel in the Florida Folk Magic series.
  • Current temperatures here are in the 80s, decent weather for cutting grass if all of our mowers weren’t broken down. And we’ve gone without rain for several days as well. We’re fortunate that we don’t have a SoCal rainfall from tropical storm Kay or an Alaska weather problem from an incoming typhoon.
  • According to Publishers Weekly, “ALA officials reported 681 documented attempts to ban or restrict library resources in schools, universities, and public libraries through the first eight months of 2022, on pace to shatter the 729 challenges ALA tracked in 2021. The challenges thus far in 2022 have targeted some 1,651 different titles—already more than during all of 2021—with some 70% of this year’s challenges targeting multiple titles. In past years, most challenges sought to remove or restrict a single title.” This is a good time to be aware of banned books week.

–Malcolm

Rolled Carpet: Dead Body Not Included

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn death5 Comments

Several of us were “talking” on Facebook this morning about the fact we can’t see a rolled up carpet alongside the road without thinking there’s a dead body in it.

If any organized crime enforcers are reading this blog, I have a question: Do real killers roll bodies up in carpets?

If a cop or a nosy neighbor sees a couple of guys putting a roll of carpet in the trunk of a car at night, you’d think the scene would be a dead give-away.

This picture probably causes nightmares.
This picture probably causes nightmares.

Perhaps we’ve seen too much TV where bodies are lamely rolled up in carpets. A popular show last year showed a bunch of college students moving a body that way. Gosh, if that’s the disposal method of choice for students, just think about older people who’ve seen a thousand crime shows where carpets and the dead always went out in the trash together.

When I see ads for rolled up carpet, I expect a disclaimer at the bottom that says: Dead Body Not Included.

There must be a better way of removing the dead from our presence that doesn’t attract attention. The wood chipper in Fargo had possibilities until a lot of people saw the movie and assumed that if they heard a wood chipper at night, somebody was going to be reported missing in the morning.

The TV series Bones finds interesting (and usually gross) ways of disposing of bodies at the beginning of each show. They seem to like the “high yuck” factor to attract the disturbed segment of the population.

As an author, I speculate about this kind of thing for research purposes.  However, what with the feds spying on us, it’s become harder and harder to do Google searches like “How Can I Hide Uncle Ned’s Body” without some web crawler bot finding it and flagging the query at one of the alphabet soup agencies that claims it isn’t watching for key words like “body” and “rolled up carpet.”

We hear on TV and the Internet that cops think cop shows are unrealistic. They could help. All it would take would be a web page with information like this:

  • How to put granny on an ice floe without getting caught.
  • How to poison your husband/wife so that even Abby on NCIS won’t figure out how it happened.
  • How to dispose of a body without getting caught by the police.
  • How to successfully launder money, hire a hit man, move weapons around the country, and get away with running a numbers racket out of your kitchen.

Frankly, all of us would benefit from this kind of information: (a) authors would make books and screen plays more realistic, (b) readers/viewers would have higher quality entertainment, (c) kids would stop getting scared when they see rolls of carpet in the ditch because nobody would be using carpet improperly any more.

Those of us who have been scarred for life worrying about what’s in rolls of carpet would finally know that carpets are safe.  The country would save billions of dollars that go to therapists who are helping patients cope with this problem. (My guess is that most health insurance companies don’t over “Carpet Phobia.)

Personally, when I see a roll of carpet, I want to visualize how beautiful it will look in the living room rather than thinking, “hmm, I have seen Dad for a couple of days.”

–Malcolm

AtSeaBookCoverMalcolm R. Campbell is the author of “At Sea,” “Conjure Woman’s Cat,” “Sarabande,” and other books in which no dead guys have been rolled up in a carpet.

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