(Image from Barnes & Noble)

(Note:  While this review will not contain spoilers for Bones in Her Pocket, it may inadvertently reveal plot surprises from earlier Temperance Brennan mysteries.  As always, I recommend reading books in a series in order.)

If you read this blog with any frequency (and I sure hope you do!), my undying love for anything Temperance Brennan ("anything" actually doesn't include the tv show Bones) does not surprise you in the least. So, naturally, when I heard that Kathy Reichs, the creator of  my favorite forensic anthropologist, would be publishing an e-novella starring Tempe, I knew I had to read it.  

Except for the length, Bones in Her Pocket acts just like any other book in the Tempe Brennan series, pitting the intrepid scientist against an unknown killer in a tense, action-packed forensic mystery.  And, while this newest story doesn't advance any of the subplots relating to our heroine's personal life (darn it!), it does relate another exciting adventure in her professional one.

In this episode, Tempe is called out to a remote artists' colony near a mountain lake in North Carolina.  Bones have been discovered inside a water-logged, fly-infested canvas tote bag.  Animal bones, she figures.  Except they're not.  The remains belong to a young woman fitting the description of Edith Blankenship, a missing graduate student.  Did Edith's passion for saving the lake's birds get her killed?  Did she step on the toes of the wrong eco-radical?  How did the ebullient student end up in a watery grave?  Using the bones as her guide, Tempe's determined to find out.  Before she ends up sharing Edith's fate. 

While Bones in Her Pocket is pretty much the same ole, same ole as far as Tempe Brennan books are concerned, I still enjoyed it.  Reichs just knows how to pull me in with colorful characters, intriguing mysteries and, of course, with the further development of the already empathetic and likable Tempe (book Tempe is VERY different from t.v. Tempe, by the way).  Her adventures—even the brief ones—will always interest me.  

FYI:  Bones in Her Pocket is only available as an e-book.  For just $1.99, it can be purchased at either Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

(Readalikes:  other books in the Tempe Brennan series [Deja Dead; Death Du Jour; Deadly Decisions; Fatal Voyage; Grave Secrets; Bare Bones; Monday Mourning; Cross Bones; Break No Bones; Bones to Ashes; Devil Bones; 206 Bones; Spider Bones; Flash and Bones; Bones Are Forever; Bones of the Lost]

Grade:   

If this were a movie, it would be rated:  

for language (1 F-bomb, plus milder invectives), violence and gore

To the FTC, with love:  I bought Bones in Her Pocket with a portion of the millions I make from my lucrative career as a book blogger.  Ha ha.