Kathy Reichs on 25 years of Tempe Brennan
Kathy Reichs is the author of the Temperance Brennan series of forensic thrillers. We spoke with her in the lead-in to Cold, Cold Bones as 2022 marks 25 years since we first met Temperance Brennan in Déjà Dead.
It’s now 25 years since Déjà Dead introduced us to Temperance Brennan. When you look back on the writer you were then, do you think you could have conceived that you would go on to write (at least!) another 20 books about her?
When I wrote the first Temperance Brennan novel, I was hoping that more would follow. I did not anticipate that twenty-five years later I would be working on the twenty-second book in the series! I am gratified that the character has resonated so well with readers.
Are there parts of writing a Tempe Brennan novel that you struggled with at the outset that you feel like you’ve mastered now? Or is it a new set of problems to struggle through every time?
One of the difficult tasks in writing a series is reintroducing the core cast of players in each book. An author must do this for readers who are newcomers to the stories. But the characters must be introduced in a new and creative way each time so as not to bore returning readers.
Cold, Cold Bones sees Tempe targeted and taunted by a series of killings, which is a different kind of mystery for her to solve—with really high stakes for her personally. Does that kind of a plot work a different set of muscles for you as a writer, as opposed to putting Tempe to work on establishing the facts of a death that occurred in the past?
This plotline did create new challenges. Since Cold, Cold Bones draws on many of my earlier works, I had to constantly return to those books to check the facts and details in those stories.
If you could give us a window into your mind, how long do you carry around a case that you’d like to work into a Temperance Brennan novel? Has it ever happened that a development in the science of the field suddenly pushed a case to the top of the pile for you, or conversely made it less interesting to work into a novel?
I analyzed so many cases during my career as a forensic anthropologist, that I will never run out of ideas. But, if I draw on a real situation, I always change all details—names, dates, specific locations—for both legal and ethical reasons. But not every Temperance Brennan book draws on an actual case. Many are “ripped from the headlines” as we used to joke in the Bones writers room.
When you have a minute to yourself, away from TV producing and novel-writing, what do you like to read?
I bounce all over the map, enjoying both fiction and nonfiction. My last five reads were: What Happened to the Bennets by Lisa ScottolIine, Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson, This Is Happiness by Niall Williams, Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, and Billy Summers by Stephen King. ◼
Cold, Cold Bones
Kathy Reichs returns with her twenty-first taut novel of suspense featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan who, after receiving a box with a human eyeball in it, uncovers a series of ever more grisly killings eerily re-enacting the most shocking of her prior cases.
View eBook View AudiobookAuthor photo: Marie-Reine Mattera
