Bones to Ashes

Library Journal Review: The "forest primeval" of Longfellow's epic poem Evangeline holds only criminal darkness in this latest offering in Reichs's Tempe Brennan series. The forensic anthropologist is back in Montreal (after Break No Bones), facing a troubling lineup of young, female corpses needing her analysis. All from Acadia, these victims trigger long-suppressed memories of Evangeline, a childhood friend also from Acadia who mysteriously disappeared one summer. Tempe and police detective Andrew Ryan (her on again-off again lover) become convinced that her friend's fate is somehow connected to the bones in her hands. Hippolyte, a police colleague who grew up in the French-speaking Atlantic provinces, opens doors to the Acadian communities, as does a forensic linguist who analyzes a small volume of poems found at one of the crime scenes. When two of the corpses become connected to a photographer with an epic-size cache of kiddie porn, the Quebec investigators recognize they've found something huge. Reichs keeps her superb suspense piece on track, leaving the reader totally wrung out by the time the ultimate villains are tracked down and confronted. Essential for all collections.