An Alternate Cover Edition for this ISBN can be found here. The meticulously dismembered body of a woman is discovered in the grounds of an abandoned monastery. 'Too decomposed for standard autopsy. Request anthropologic expertise.' Enter Dr Temperance Brennan, Director of Forensic Anthropology for the province of Quebec, who has been researching recent disappearances in the city. Despite the cynicism of Detective Claudel who heads the investigation, Brennan is convinced that a serial killer is at work. Her forensic expertise finally convinces Claudel, but only after the body count has risen... Tempe takes matters into her own hands, but her determined probing places those closest to her in mortal danger. Can Tempe make her crucial breakthrough before the killer strikes again?
Temperance Brennan Series
This series follows forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan as she helps solve crimes through the analysis of skeletal remains. Her work is tied to complex cases and personal challenges that she navigates throughout the books.






Recommended Reading Order
'Another day. Another death. Death du Jour. My God, how many such days would there be?' On a bitterly cold march night in Montreal, forensic anthropologiest Dr Temperance Brennan is exhuming the remains of a nun proposed for sainthood in the grounds of an old church. Just hours later, Tempe is called to the scene of an horrific arson. A young family has perished, and there seems to be no witness, no motive, no explanation. From the charred remains of the inferno, to a trail of sinister cult activity and a terrifying showdown during an ice storm, Tempe faces a nerve-shattering test of both her forensic expertise and her instinct for survival.
Deadly décisions
- 333 pages
- 12 hours of reading
"Fans of TV's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation should be in heaven" (People) stepping into the world of forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan, star of Kathy Reichs' electrifyingly authentic bestsellers. When innocent blood is spilled, she deciphers the shattering truth it holds. Nine-year-old Emily Anne Toussaint is fatally shot on a Montreal street. A North Carolina teenager disappears from her home, and parts of her skeleton are found hundreds of miles away. The shocking deaths propel Tempe Brennan from north to south, and deep into a shattering investigation inside the bizarre culture of outlaw motorcycle gangs -- where one misstep could bring disaster for herself or someone she loves.
Fatal voyage
- 464 pages
- 17 hours of reading
When a plane crashes high in the mountains of North Carolina, Tempe Brennan is one of the first on the scene. As a forensic anthropologist she serves on the response team. The task that confronts her is a sad and sickening one.
Grave Secrets
- 448 pages
- 16 hours of reading
In the searing heat of Guatemala, Dr Temperance Brennan must harden herself against the horrors she excavates. And then four young girls go missing from Guatemala City. When a skeleton is found at the back of a rundown hotel, only someone with Tempe's expertise can deduce the identity and cause of death. But as she searches for answers, her path is blocked at every turn. It is clear that some people will stop at nothing to keep Guatemala's secrets buried.
Bare Bones
- 400 pages
- 14 hours of reading
It's a summer of record-breaking heat in Charlotte and Dr Temperance Brennan is looking forward to her first vacation in years. She's almost out the door when the bones start appearing. First there's the newborn skeleton found in a wood stove. Next, a small plane flies into a rock face. Both the pilot and passenger are burned beyond recognition.
Monday Mourning
- 303 pages
- 11 hours of reading
Tempe Brennan arrives in Montreal from Charlotte in early December to testify as an expert witness. As a Forensic Anthropologist for Quebec, she should be reviewing her notes, but instead, she’s in a freezing pizza parlour basement, surrounded by rats and the skeletal remains of three young women. Homicide detective Luc Claudel, who has never been fond of Tempe, believes the bones are historic and not his concern, especially after the pizza parlour owner finds 19th-century buttons with the remains. However, Tempe suspects otherwise. She plans to conduct Carbon 14 testing to determine the bones' age and analyze the tooth enamel to trace the women's origins. If her suspicions are correct, Claudel could be facing three recent murders. Meanwhile, Detective Andrew Ryan's mysterious behavior raises questions. His private phone calls and sudden disappearances come just as Tempe begins to trust him, leaving her with her cat, Birdie, and more nights alone. As she delves into both her personal and professional challenges, Tempe becomes entangled in a sinister web, where women have vanished without a trace. With her own safety at risk, she realizes she may be the next target.
Cross bones
- 497 pages
- 18 hours of reading
'Death by self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head' is the on-scene assessment, but the victim's relatives are adamant in their rejection of suicide as an explanation. Discovered in a closet, a week after death, the body is barely recognisable. Extreme heat has accelerated decomposition, and Dr Temperance Brennan's forensic expertise is required.|PB
Break No Bones
- 339 pages
- 12 hours of reading
It's the second-to-last day of archaeological field school - the students are working on a site of prehistoric graves on Dewees, a barrier island north of Charleston, South Carolina, when a much more recent burial is uncovered.
Discovering the skeleton of a young girl in the neighborhood of a childhood best friend who had gone missing thirty years earlier, Tempe Brennan investigates suspicions that the victim and her friend are one and the same and that the case is related to two other unsolved deaths. Reprint.
Temperance Brennan - 11: Devil Bones
- 304 pages
- 11 hours of reading
Charlotte, North Carolina. One of the town's oldest neighbourhoods. An underground chamber is exposed in a seedy, dilapidated house with sagging trim and peeling paint... Called to the scene is forensic anthropologist Dr Temperance Brennan. Fighting her claustrophobia, and the unmistakable sweet, fetid odour of rotting flesh, Tempe descends the precariously steep, makeshift wooden steps. What awaits her below is a ritualistic display; slain chickens and a goat - and a skull, ghostly pale, rests on a pedestal, the lower jaw missing, the empty orbits staring back at her. Two cauldrons stand nearby, beads and antlers suspended overhead. Age, race and sex indicators confirm the skull as that of a young, black female - but how did she die, and when? Then, just as Tempe is working to determine the post-mortem interval, another body is uncovered. The corpse is headless, the torso carved with satanic symbols. Led by a preacher-turned-politician, citizen vigilantes blame Devil-worshippers and begin a witch-hunt, intent on revenge.
206 Bones
- 320 pages
- 12 hours of reading
In the twelfth novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs, forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan finds herself buried alive after being accused of mishandling the autopsy of a Canadian heiress. There are 206 bones in the human body. Forensic anthropologists know them intimately, and can use them to recreate every kind of violent end. Tempe wakes up to discover that she is enclosed in a kind of very small, very dark, very cold space. She is bound, hands to feet, and there’s something wrong with her ankle. Unsure of where she is, Tempe slowly begins to work out what has happened… When the body of a missing heiress was discovered, Temperance Brennan and Lieutenant Ryan accompanied the remains from Montreal to the Chicago morgue. Their trip was soon interrupted when an incriminating phone call accused Tempe of mishandling the autopsy—and the case. But before Tempe could face her accuser, the one man with information about the call died, and Tempe was left in the dark. As the facts slowly slot into place, Tempe wonders who wants her dead, or at least out of the way, and why? Pulse-pounding, electrifying, and seamlessly weaving between past and present, 206 Bones describes the incredible devastation that occurs when forensic evidence is sabotaged in the lab.
Tempe is summoned to investigate an autoerotic death, only to discover that the deceased may have a connection to a helicopter crash in Vietnam from 40 years ago. This raises the question of who is truly buried in the soldier's grave.
FLASH! Illuminated by lightning, a lifeless human hand seems to reach from a barrel of asphalt beside the Charlotte racetrack. Even for forensic anthropologist Dr Tempe Brennan it is a disturbing sight. And now she must find answers before thousands arrive for the year's big race. But before she can carry out a proper examination, the FBI mysteriously confiscate and destroy the body. It's a dead end. Until a young engineer alerts Tempe to the disappearance of his sister and her boyfriend from Charlotte twelve years earlier, and she determines to uncover what really happened to them. Soon after, the engineer's body is found crushed under the wheels of a race car. Tempe realises the situation is truly sinister - and that even her own life could be in terrible danger.
Bones are Forever. Knochenjagd, englische Ausgabe
- 448 pages
- 16 hours of reading
Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan examines the bodies of three babies while Detective Ryan investigates their mother in a case with ties to the high-stakes world of diamond mining.
While investigating the connections between a long-dead business man, the smuggling of mummified dogs from Peru, and the death of a teenage girl killed in a hit and run, Temperance Brennan discovers a human trafficking enterprise at the center of it all. The scope of the case extends from South America to Afghanistan, and Tempe's soon-to-be ex might have connections that run to the very heart of the trafficking ring.
Bones never lie
- 471 pages
- 17 hours of reading
A match has been obtained on DNA sample 7426 to Canadian national number 64899, identified as: Anique Pomerleau, white/female, DOB: 12/10/75 - the subject is currently not in custody. For a decade, Temperance Brennan has been haunted by the monster, Anique Pomerleau, killer of young women. The one who got away, the one who has now come back - coming for Tempe.
Speaking in Bones
- 480 pages
- 17 hours of reading
For every case Temperence Brennan has solved, there remain innumerable unidentified bodies in her lab. Information on some of these is available online, where amateur sleuths sometimes take a stab at solving cases. One day, Tempe gets a call from Hazel Lucky Strike, a web sleuth who believes she's successfully connected a body in Tempe's lab to a missing persons report on an eighteen-year-old named Cora Teague. Since the bones in her lab do seem to match Cora's medical records, Tempe looks into the case, returning to the spot where the bones were originally found. What seems at first to be an isolated tragedy takes on a more sinister cast as Tempe uncovers two more sets of bones nearby. When she then learns that the area is known as a viewing point for a famous unexplained light phenomenon with significance for a local cult, Tempe's suspicions turn to murder by ritual sacrifice -- a theory thrown into question when Hazel herself turns up dead. Still reeling from her mother's diagnosis and the shock of Andrew Ryan's potentially life-changing proposal, Tempe races to solve the murders before the body count climbs further.
A Conspiracy of Bones
- 352 pages
- 13 hours of reading
EVERY BODY HAS SECRETS It all starts with a series of text messages. Each message contains a new picture of a corpse, missing its face and hands. Dr Temperance Brennan needs to find out who the dead man is, and why the images were sent to her. The only problem is, she has been kicked off the team. So she goes rogue, knowing that she is the only one who can solve this case. As she starts her investigation she discovers a connection to a decade-old missing child case. The more she uncovers, the darker and more twisted the picture becomes ...
The bone code
- 353 pages
- 13 hours of reading
NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author KATHY REICHS returns with her next edge-of-your seat thriller featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author KATHY REICHS returns with her next edge-of-your seat thriller featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.














