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    Spider Bones: A Novel
    Spider Bones: A Novel
    Spider Bones: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    Spider Bones: A Novel

    Written by Kathy Reichs

    Narrated by Linda Emond

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Don’t miss this “whopper” (Publishers Weekly) of a thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs in her “cleverly plotted” (The New York Times) Temperance Brennan series, the inspiration for the hit FOX television series Bones.

    John Lowery was declared dead in 1968—the victim of a Huey crash in Vietnam, his body buried long ago in North Carolina. Four decades later, Temperance Brennan is called to the scene of a drowning in Hemmingford, Quebec. The victim appears to have died while in the midst of a bizarre sexual practice. The corpse is later identified as John Lowery. But how could Lowery have died twice, and how did an American soldier end up in Canada?

    Tempe sets off for the answer, exhuming Lowery’s grave in North Carolina and taking the remains to Hawaii for reanalysis—to the headquarters of JPAC, the US military’s Joint POW/ MIA Accounting Command, which strives to recover Americans who have died in past conflicts. In Hawaii, Tempe is joined by her colleague and ex-lover Detective Andrew Ryan (how “ex” is he?) and by her daughter, who is recovering from her own tragic loss. Soon another set of remains is located, with Lowery’s dog tags tangled among them. Three bodies—all identified as Lowery.

    And then Tempe is contacted by Hadley Perry, Honolulu’s flamboyant medical examiner, who needs help identifying the remains of an adolescent boy found offshore. Was he the victim of a shark attack? Or something much more sinister?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateAug 24, 2010
    ISBN9781442304376
    Author

    Kathy Reichs

    Kathy Reichs’s first novel Déjà Dead, published in 1997, won the Ellis Award for Best First Novel and was an international bestseller. Fire and Bones is Reichs’s twenty-third novel featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. Reichs was also a producer of Fox Television’s longest running scripted drama, Bones, which was based on her work and her novels. One of very few forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, Reichs divides her time between Charlotte, North Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina. Visit her at KathyReichs.com or follow her on Twitter @KathyReichs, Instagram @KathyReichs, or Facebook @KathyReichsBooks. 

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    Reviews for Spider Bones

    3.5/5

    570 ratings53 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Confusion among corpses runs rampant. A body is discovered in Canada that is identified as "Spider" Lowery; but, Spider Lowery is buried in North Carolina. Or is he? Once Temperance begins her investigations, she travels from Canada to NC to Hawaii only to come across more corpses that aren't who they seem to be. Admittedly, I get a little lost when Reichs begins to get extremely technical; that's when I begin scanning instead of wholeheartedly reading. I enjoy a book that's more conversational not technical. Nonetheless, this was an interesting premise and I enjoyed the book very much.
    • 5/5
      Great storyline. I think that it lacked a little of the intensity of some of Reichs’ other books. I enjoy the narrator in the series. Doesn’t try to overdo the whole southern dialect, as do some.
    • 3/5
      I would give this 3.5 stars if I could. I enjoy these stories as a break from heavier reading. Although, I think the author has done a good job of keeping up the quality of writing and the story she presents. Many of these series tend to taper off at this point, where it's clear the author has run out of ideas or in some way lost interest in the characters. She keeps the ongoing relationships plausible and the story moving along.
    • 2/5
      There is a story in between great clumps of facts that read as if copied from an info folder.I am ready to pass on any following books.
    • 3/5
      Well, it took Kathy Reichs 13 books, but she finally broke her formula and changed up Spider Bones' ending. She must have finally heard my constant griping about how predictable her endings are! Spider Bones' mystery was very interesting and completely unpredictable, and it kept me hooked until the last page. However, I still felt the same way I have about the last few books - the writing just isn't very engrossing. It seems a little clinical and standoffish, as if the author is just going through the motions. We meet yet another one of Tempe's past beaus, who of course is just as sarcastic and witty as Ryan, Pete, and Charlie. Ryan goes on vacation with Tempe and her daughter, and constantly makes lewd comments, and yet Tempe barely bats an eye and avoids the issue for the entire book. Will-they-or-won't-they can only last so long before it gets tiring. And then there was the startling inclusion of the word "squaw" as a term of affection, which seemed like a major faux pas for someone as educated as Reichs. I prefer my fiction to not include offensive racial epithets, thankyouverymuch.
    • 3/5
      An average book which I was expecting more from. I think the most exciting part of this book was it was my first e-book.A dead body found in Canada turns out to be that of a dead soldier buried years earlier. How is this possible? Who is the body buried?A simple murder becomes more and more complex as the story goes on. Not only is this a matter of finding out who the two bodies are we get an extra 2 bodies further in the story, 2 people killed in Hawaii, Brennan ran off the street due to annoying the local gangs and also the book tries to understand the waste of people dieing at war.Too many deaths and the storyline spread to thin....I think the author was paid for this book based on the body count. I was starting to lose my way towards the end.
    • 5/5
      Reason for Reading: Next in the series.Kathy Reichs is in top form with this latest entry in the Tempe Brennan series. The first chapter starts out with an obscure and uncomfortable crime scene and continues on from there with an intricate mystery. One case leads to another, a fresh body leads to skeletal remains and soon Tempe and Ryan are trying to identify and determine the deaths of several bodies which send them to Hawaii. Tempe then finds herself called in by the local ME to help identify some odds & ends of human remains found from shark attacks. The addition of both daughters for the first time, making a foursome, adds some new dynamics to the personal relationships.A fast paced case, with many trails to follow, and plenty of bodies. What first starts off as a weird death turns into identifying remains of soldiers from Vietnam and takes a turn toward organized drug crime and gangs in Hawaii. A very intricate and detailed case that gets bigger in scope as it goes along leaving the reader hard pressed to figure out. I did have a correct suspect in mind, but just where to place them, whether as a victim or villain of which case I couldn't quite put it all together myself. I found the solution very entertaining and the story more on par with her earlier work than some of the other more recent volumes (excepting 206 Bones, that is) . This was a quick, page turning read for me and for once I wasn't annoyed with Tempe and Ryan's relationship and it feels like the next book will be pivotal for them, and honestly Ms. Reichs I think the next book needs to settle their relationship once and for all. It has gone on long enough, already. Can't wait for the next book!
    • 4/5
      I always feel...less than intelligent...by the time I reach the end of Reichs' books, invariably pausing several times to ask my wife to recap for me. Perhaps this is because I almost always listen to her books as audiobooks. They make terrific audiobooks, by the way, but the reason I always feel stupified is because of the complexity of Reichs' plots and number of characters that she introduces and keeps track of throughout the story. Sometimes I guess "whodunit," sometimes I don't...assuming I can keep my facts straight. In any case, however, the accounts of the forensic science is incredible, as always, combined with great settings and just enough action to balance the cerebral deduction. Reichs spins a great mystery for those of who like the genre, and her newest book is no exception.
    • 3/5
      This is the 1st Dr Temperance Brennan novels I have read for ages. She finds a body in a lake in Canada ithe dead victim is meant to be a Vietnam war soldier called John Spider Lowery who died in 1968.This leads Temp and her colleague Ryan on a bit of a wild goose chase to Hawaii where they work closely with the JPAC Missing in Action department who try to locate dead soldiers remains. While in Hawaii Temp helps out the local Police there has been 2 gang murders bodies fed to sharks. She solves this case it loosely ties in with the original case of Spider Lowery. Basically he was a draft dodger and swapped places with his cousin who went to Vietnam but then later killed an American civilian and took his identity. OK book bit confusing in places but kind of made sense in the end.
    • 3/5
      Spider Bones by Kathy Reichs was….ok.
      Usually I love her books, i love the TV show and in general really love the characters in both the book in show. For some reason though this book kinda fell flat for me.
      The basic plot is that a man got fished out of a pond in canada and was IDed as a man who had died decades ago. Brennan then winds up going to North Carolina and Hawaii in order to solve this case.
      There’s the usual family drama (it was nice to see more of Katy and Ryan’s daughter), boy drama (the tension between Ryan and Brennan), and people trying to kill Brennan. Everything that was required to make this a good read was there, but it was all a little two predicable and under delivered. All in all, i wasn’t too impressed. But I’m sure her next book will be epic! lol
      Happy Readings!
      <3 The Book Worm
    • 4/5
      Another very good book in a series that I just love. I adored learning more about the setting of the Vietnam War, and body recovery. I had no idea there was a whole organization in charge of this, recovering MIL's from all war; what a damn good idea!
      I really enjoyed learning about "chimeras", and what that meant. (Basically, someone with 2 sets of genes.) Hey, the more technical jargon you throw at me, the better! I was in heaven.. and then I got a little confused at the end.
      I thought it was just me, not paying very good attention, but I think a few other readers have had the same problem?
      Oh well, I love Reich's novels, and I believe I have read them all. Good job, Kathy! Only next time, can you make the book thicker? It was over, way too soon... lol.
    • 2/5
      My first "Bones" book, and I probably won't find another. Just not my style.
    • 3/5
      She manages to keep me engaged with the Tempe Brennan series.... lots of drama & ups/downs, but not over the top with it. Good enough mystery, well researched with the forensics (duh!).
      REALLY don't care for the cliff hanging at the end of Every Chapter. Old.
    • 4/5
      Four stars because I really thought this was one of the strongest books Reichs has written, plot-wise. The mystery is very elaborate, causing a reader to wonder at several points if there could possibly be a reasonable explanation that resolves all the seemingly incompatible pieces. It's fairly ingenious and very complex, so I can see where some readers failed to pay enough attention (as evidenced by reviews where readers didn't "get" the resolution or got lost along the way). Almost, but not quite, an Agatha-Christie-worthy storyline.

      By the way, when you read the first chapter, if you find it off-putting, rest assured that the rest of the book is NOT heading where you think it's going to!

      All that said, maybe because I haven't read Reichs in awhile, I found her writing style more irritating than I'd remember. Tempe (far from being the brainiac with a penchant for overly formal language that Bones is in the TV version) thinks in a conversational style of incomplete sentences and sometimes disjointed, choppy phrases. Maybe to some this is charming or even realistic, but I found it very grating in certain spots.

      Example from early in the book: "Back in the city, traffic moved like mud through a straw. The Jeep lurched and jerked as Ryan shifted between gas and brake. Kind, yes. Witty, affirmative. Generous, absolutely. Patient, no way. Travel with Ryan was often a trial. I checked my watch. Five ten. Normally Ryan would have queried my dining plans by now. Suggested a restaurant. Tonight he didn't."

      See what I mean?
    • 3/5
      All in all I enjoyed this. There were some aspects that bugged me a bit, but the story was good if a bit convoluted and the mystery too easy to unravel. It was well paced with well developed characters. I will read more of the series.
    • 4/5
      Spider Bones is about the bones identified as a man nicknamed 'Spider' who was supposed to have died in a helicopter crash during the Vietnam War. However, fingerprints of a corpse in Quebec identify him as the same man, John Lowery. John's mother and brother are dead, but his father is still alive. Why is his father so adamant about not providing DNA to help determine which body is his son's?The action moves to Hawaii, where Tempe is helping the U.S. military's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command try to identify the bones. It gets even weirder when yet another set of bones turns up wearing Lowery's dog tags. Her daughter is with her because of something that happened to a good friend.Tempe is also asked to help with some lumps of flesh and bone that apparently were left over from a shark snack. Yes, they're human. Another lump with bone is found -- same victim or another one? This subplot proves dangerous to Tempe's health.Andrew Ryan and his daughter join Tempe at her invitation. The two daughters do not form an immediate mutual admiration society, to say the least.By coincidence, I'd very recently read another book mentioning the same rare medical condition that gets mentioned in this one, so I can't feel smug about figuring it out before Tempe does. Also, I was listening to the entire book over two days instead of having to work long hours with little sleep and a lot of stress, so I can pardon Tempe for taking so long to guess one of the revelations. However, if the author wants me to think of Dr. Brennan as an intelligent and sensible woman, she should have her heroine get herself checked out after she's injured during a murder attempt.The narration is good, except for when Ms. Emond pronounces 'bonjour' (the 'r' is silent) and 'Quebec' (it's a 'k" sound, not a 'qu' sound, as Canadian friends have taught me). This book isn't that old. Why didn't the narrator check French pronunciation online before she started? Wasn't she aware that some listeners might be old enough to have been forced to take French in school and could remember some of it almost five decades later?
    • 2/5
      Found it more confusing than her other books - too many characters and what was basically a simple mystery, made more complicated by artificial "cliff-hanger" endings to chapters.
    • 3/5
      readable but unexciting
    • 3/5
      I'm a little bit ambivalent about Reichs: on the one hand, her fast-paced stories and intricate look into the world of forensic anthropology make her books a great read, on the other her curt and sometimes gruesome style are, to my taste, a little off-putting. Add to this an overly complex story of mixed-up bodies and drug dealers, and I had a bit of a hard time getting to care about the story. Had she stuck to the Vietnam war, I would have been perfectly happy, but adding layer after layer just made the cast of characters too large; for me, it ended up in a list of names I read with mere casual interest.This said, Temperance is a super character and I did like the theme of the book. Reichs introduced me to a whole section of the military I knew nothing about. At the very least, an entertaining and fast-paced read.
    • 4/5
      An enjoyable procedural mystery. Many of the past novels in this series have been better, but the material about the Government agency that locates and IDs military fallen was fascinating.
    • 5/5
      John Lowery was declared dead in 1968 - the victim of a Huey crash in Vietnam, his body buried long ago in North Carolina. Four decades later, Temperance Brennan is called to the scene of a drowning in Hemmingford, Quebec. The victim appears to have died while in the midst of a bizarre sexual practice. The corpse is later identified as John Lowery. But how could Lowery have died twice, and how did an American Soldier end up in Canada? Tempe sets off for the answer, exhuming Lowery's grave in North Carolina and taking the remains to Hawaii for reanalysis - to the headquarters of JPAC, the US military's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, which strives to recover Americans who have died in past conflicts. In Hawaii, Tempe is joined by her colleague and ex-lover Detective Andrew Ryan and by her daughter, who is recovering from her own tragic loss. Soon another set of remains is located, with Lowery's dog tags tangled among them. Three bodies - all identified as Lowery.
    • 3/5
      Fun forensic mystery, set in Hawaii, with a confusing case of mistaken identities.
    • 4/5
      Another page turner thriller, filled with twists and surprises. My kind of story.
    • 4/5
      Unfortunately Kathy Reichs books are getting a bit predictable. There's the push and pull between Andy Ryan and Temperance, the running from Quebec to North Carolina to who knows where else. There's Katy's drama (Temperance's daughter) and Lily's drama (Andy's daughter). And then there's a mystery and whew is it a confusing one.A body is found in Montreal, they find out that the man was actually from North Carolina, but then they also find out that the man who just recently has died was already declared KIA. At least, I think that was the basic story. So, Temperance goes to Hawaii to check to see if guy #1 (from Montreal) or guy #2 (KIA) is the real one, and who the other guy is. Of course, it's not that simple. There's shark activity and all sorts of other excitement in Hawaii. It's one of Reichs more complicated novels for sure, but just as I did when I watched Lost or Flash Forward, or while I'm watching The Even, the key is to just go with the flow, go with the story. The author/creator will either reveal all by the end of the book and explain herself, or she won't. So either the reader can make charts, graphs and try and figure out the answer before the end, or the reader can enjoy the story at face value and get the answer at the end.I went with the latter strategy and for the most part Reichs didn't disappoint, no large hanging storylines or anything.Not quite as great a book as 206 Bones, but a nice four star read.
    • 3/5
      Not a bad book but not a favorite in the series
    • 5/5
      Apart from the fact that the book Temperance Brennan and the TV one share only a name and profession, this is still and enjoyable series. Nicely twisty plot.

      Liked the stuff on the identification efforts on remains on the part of the military.

      Setup starts with a body id of someone who supposedly died in Vietnam.

      A little much in the way of coincidences and I get a little tired of how often the protagonists of mysteries are the targets of unsuccessful attempts on their lives...
    • 3/5
      This one takes place mostly in Hawaii. Better than the last one, though the coincidence of the two cases coming together was a bit far-fetched, and the chimera explanation -- that's an old forensics solution (CSI and others have all done it already). Also the behaviour of Brennan's and Ryan's daughters was more 16 than early 20s. I loved the shameless plug for her tv show! That made me laugh. Fewer rehotical questions summarizing the case(s) everychapter, but still lots of patronizing scientific explanations. Whatever; it's easy listening for the car.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyed it very much. You really had to pay close attention to the story--so many twists!!!
    • 2/5
      I found this book difficult to follow at times. It got better towards the end, but Kathy Reichs seems to have taken a different turn with her adventures and unfortunately its not for the better. I remember how hooked I was on the first few Brennan Books, I just don't get that page turning feeling anymore.
    • 2/5
      Definitely not one of the best of the series. The science plot twist was a bit of a surprise, but the "who is this guy?" was telegraphed (for me, at least) pretty early on. I'm fairly tired of the on again, off again love thing with Ryan, but the depiction of Brennan's relationship with her young adult daughter is very accurate to this mother of a 20-year-old. Bringing in the "gangsta" angle seemed ridiculous to me, but I suppose there had to be some immediate danger somewhere to keep the publisher interested.I still enjoy the television show Bones far more than the novels, which is unusual - but the show has more humor. I don't think I'd read novelizations based on the show, however, because a lot of the humor requires the chemistry between the actors as well as good scriptwriting. There are few authors who can translate that from screen to text.