Review: Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs

Picture links to the Good reads page

A plumber doing some renovations on an empty house discovers an unknown part to the cellar, and with that a human skull,ritual implements and rotting animal carcasses. Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan is called to investigate. Subsequently, a headless body turns up on a nearby lake shore. Many questions arise, who is the owner of the skull? Do the skull and the body belong to the same person? Why is there minimal decomposition on the body? Who is responsible? Before anyone knows what is going on a preacher turned politician starts making accusations of witchcraft and local citizens turn it into a witch hunt.

Kathy Reichs has really become one of my favourite authors and I usually thoroughly enjoy her books. However, I really struggled to get into this book in the beginning. It seemed to take a long time to get anywhere.  I found there was too much background information given considering that it was the 11th book in the series. Also, some of it had no bearing on the current story, so really was unnecessary. Also, there was too much theoretical information (I normally enjoy this, so not sure why it frustrated me in this book), and I felt that it sometimes interfered with the flow of the story. I also, generally prefer the books set in Canada, since I love Andrew Ryan and he did not get enough time in this book.
Having said that, the book is not all bad and I was never in any danger of giving up.The second half of the book is much faster than the first, and there are lots of twists and turns in the plot. I had guessed the culprit half way through, then with the way the story played out changed my mind about 4 times before finally discovering that it was my original suspect. Once you get into the story it is easy to read and goes quickly, so on the whole I did enjoy it.

Rating: I gave it 3/5 stars on Goodreads