Writing Magazine April 2020

W

hen most writers talk about the bones of a story

they’re talking about the basics: plot, themes,

setting, characters. When global bestselling

crime writer Kathy Reichs talks about bones it’s

in an entirely different context. As a forensic

anthropologist, bones are her stock-in-trade, just as they are for her

serial lead character Temperance Brennan, now in her nineteenth

outing with A Conspiracy of Bones.

‘Forensic anthropology is the study of bones,’ says Kathy, just

to make sure we’re getting the science right from the beginning.

‘It’s the exploration of the human skeleton. We’re brought in

when a normal autopsy won’t work and we address questions of

identity, cause of death, everything that we can tease out of the

bones. We work very closely with forensic pathologists.’

Like Kathy – just like Kathy – Temperance is a forensic

anthropologist. ‘Is she me? Professionally, completely. She goes

to crime scenes. She works in a lab. For years I worked in a

medical legal laboratory.’

Readers, she says, are drawn to Temperance because of her

combination of intelligence, sass and sensitivity. ‘Temperance is

smart. She’s independent and she’s able to do a difficult job in a

largely man’s world. And yet she has flaws. She has weaknesses.

She gets things wrong sometimes – which is realistic – but in

the end she figures it out. Her personal issues she doesn’t always

get right. She is layered. She can be impetuous. But she’s a

pretty happy person.’

Temperance’s personal life is where her creator uses artistic

licence. ‘She’s more risk-taking than me. She has a similar

sense of humour. She has her own issues – she’s a recovering

alcoholic, she has flaws. I wanted her to be approachable.’

Kathy is, famously, known for a tendency to answer interview

questions with cool, scientific precision that some have found

disconcerting, but she responds to WM’s questions with the

friendliness and courtesy of an approachable expert.

At the beginning of A Conspiracy of Bones, Temperance

is at home in Charlotte, North Carolina, recovering from

neurosurgery for an aneurysm and being frozen out of the

Medico-Legal Lab at the Jeffersonian Institute in Washington

DC since she clashed with a recently appointed colleague. ‘A

number of things came together,’ says Kathy. ‘For the first time

As you might expect from a forensic scientist, crime author Kathy Reichs

takes a practical approach to her bestselling Bones series, she tells Tina Jackson

16 APRIL 2020 http://www.writers-online.co.uk

BONING UP