annieb123
Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.
The Bone Hacker is the 22nd (!!!) Dr. Temperance Brennan novel by Dr. Kathy Reichs. Released 1st Aug 2023 by Simon & Schuster on their Scribner imprint, it's 336 pages and available in all formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats.
This has been, and continues to be, one of my favorite modern series. Despite the 'Hollywood-ization' of many other series, Dr. Brennan remains scrappy, dispassionate, wonderfully intelligent, non-glamorous, and ethical. The author is prolific and more than capable, delivering a tightly wrought and technically masterful book. As always, there's some interdepartmental strife, office politics, background information and interesting tidbits about forensic anthropology and science, and a compellingly complex and well constructed multi-thread plot with lots of twists. The returning/ensemble cast are so well fleshed out at this point that they really live and breathe on the page. The dialogue is never clunky, and the editing is seamless.
Although there's a lot of history and backstory covered in the previous 21 books, the author is adept enough that this one could be read as a standalone for readers who are not already fans. The entire series is well worth a read, and I recommend them highly, especially to fans of modern police/medical procedurals. With such a long running series, it would make a great choice for a long binge/buddy read project, or selection for a book club study.
Four and a half stars. Consistently top notch books.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.