Cross Bones

Kathy Reichs’s Cross Bones sends forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan from Montreal to Israel after a death connected to the Orthodox Jewish community. A photograph and an old skeleton raise questions about remains recovered near a first-century tomb, drawing Brennan and detective Andrew Ryan into disputes over archaeology, faith, provenance, and modern crime. In Israel she examines bones, excavation records, and competing claims involving a desert monastery, a missing colleague, and artifacts whose significance could provoke both scholarly and religious conflict.

Reichs uses the case to test the limits of forensic certainty across disciplines. Bone analysis can estimate age, sex, injury, and chronology, but it cannot by itself establish the historical identity that different groups want the remains to possess. Brennan must separate physical evidence from forged provenance and from interpretations shaped by belief. The international setting broadens the Temperance Brennan series without abandoning its procedural center. Suspense depends on the chain of custody connecting ancient burial, contemporary violence, and the institutions competing to control what the discovery means.