It was a summer morning in 1982 when soldiers enters the village of Chupan Ya. Twenty years later, Dr. Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist, travels to Guatemala to work on one of the most heartbreaking cases of her career. Twenty-three women and children are said to lie where Tempe and a team from the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation must search for remains. It's one of five mass graves. No records were kept. Families and neighbours refer to their lost members as 'the disappeared'.

As Tempe digs in the cold, damp pit, the soil begins to yield ash and cinders. Its colour changes from mahogany to graveyard black. Her trowel touches something hard. The bones of a child no more than two years old. Something savage happened in this village twenty years ago.

And something savage is happening today. Four girls are missing from Guatemala City, including the daughter of the Canadian Ambassador. A skeleton is found in a septic tank at the back of a run-down hotel. Only someone with Tempe's expertise can deduce who the victim was and how they died. But her path is blocked - by the district attorney's office.

An unexplained highway robbery has already resulted in tragedy. Warning bells begin to ring for Tempe. The corruption runs too deep to know where to turn. It appears that some people would prefer that Chupan Ya stayed buried. And others want the missing girls kept the same way...

Here's the thing; I really like Kathy Reichs' books. I find them compelling, and gripping even when they're not exactly challenging. They have their faults; that the author has a tendency to give procedural lectures and lengthy expositions, but that aside I can't wait to get into this book. Her last one I read in two days, and loved every minute of it.

November 26th 2002
Up to page 256

I hate it when I'm disappointed!

I couldn't wait to read this, as I'd just finished Fatal Voyage and had really enjoyed it! I even stopped reading another book in order to bump it up my list, and then I discover that there is, in effect, no story! I'm almost to the end of the book and nothing has happened!

Unlike the call to the air crash in Fatal Voyage I wasn't in the least bit grabbed by the investigation into the 'disappeared' in Guatemala. It has nothing to do with the horror involved, but everything to do with how well it was written. Where the crash site was up close and personal, the approach to the dig in Chupan Ya was clinical and uninspiring. There was an attempt to add drama when Molly and Carlos were shot, but I found myself not caring as it happened too soon, and to people we hadn't been introduced to properly.

So far each different part of the book feels disconnected. Initially we're led to believe there is a serial killer at work, and then bodies are found. After which a period of procedural and political confusing, followed by the tale of a wayward and spoilt teen. I'm sure there's a point, but I think that when writing a book you need to at least try to make your readers think you know where you're leading them. In this case I don't feel that, I just feel lost. The redeeming feature is that the style is very easy to read, and doesn't take much effort to get through.

The most annoying thing about this book is that it is obviously a character building bridge for Tempe, the main character. It is more about her love life, and relationship with Det. Ryan than it is about a good thriller. I can imagine it's hard to write about the same character in a series of books without resisting the temptation to flesh them out and give them intricate personal lives, however if I want Mills & Boon I can nip out and get one. I don't. I want a good forensic thriller, with a compelling story and a lead character I can put up with for the duration of a few books. Let's hope the end makes up for the rest, and gives a good enough pay off to make me reconsider my current opinion.

November 29th 2002
The End

Gahhhhhhhh! I think the most telling part of this review will be when I say that when the big standoff scene finally came I had no idea who the bad guy was. When I last wrote the story had shifted from a serial killing to a politically motivated murder and in the last 50 pages it shifted once more to a big old fashioned mad scientist doing evil badness.

Even after the big reveal, where Tempe does the Miss Marple exposition thing I still had no clue what the hell was going on! The story may have seemed like a good idea on the surface, but on paper either needed some serious rewriting or a total rethink because there was no continuity whatsoever, and worse, the one solitary narrative thread was left as a cliffhanger! As a reader I felt deeply unsatisfied in every way, and wish I hadn't wasted the £10 I spent buying the book.

I kept waiting for the author to prove me wrong, and bring the story together, but it never happened. The most disappointing part was that this followed hot on the heels of her best book yet, and I'd hoped the standard would continue. I was sorely disappointed.