Spider Bones - Book Review

Spider Bones is my first read for Kathy Reichs, the author behind the books that created the police/mystery TV series, Bones.

I must say that the series was a lot more exciting than the book. While, I've seen others comment that Spider Bones is not Reich's best. I still felt overall disappointed.

The beginning put me off as I felt that Brennan – or the author or both, I couldn't tell - appeared to be showing off with her French. The novel begins in Quebec, where French is commonly used. But as a reader of English I have no need to know what each place is called in French and what it means in English. I felt it was pointless.

The mystery began as intriguing with a bizarre death, originally may have been ruled as some kind of mistake by a John Lowery. As the novel progresses, there seems to be a link between this case and another. As Brennan finds out that John Lowery had died in the war in Vietnam and was supposedly buried.

So far so good, but Brennan takes up another case in Hawaii, things get confusing, whether in switching between cases or worse when there is a possibility that the cases might be linked.

From there, Spider Bones takes confusing to a whole new level. There were parts that I kept rereading to figure out what I had misunderstood and others where I gave up and thought I'd just make it to the end – which was also confusing.

There were a lot of medical terminology, to the point where I felt that the book is recommended for med students or doctors, but at other times the information was simply written and informative.

"Dead hearts don't pump. Bleeding at a trauma site usually means the victim was alive when injured. No blood usually means the hit was taken postmortem."

I liked that Brennan was often sarcastic. I couldn't be sure whether I liked or disliked her overall in the book.

I honestly had bigger expectations for the Spider Bones. And it is not often that a series (or movie) turns out to be better than the book. But this is such a case.

Overall rating: 2 stars