4.5★s
The Bone Hacker is the twenty-second book in the Temperance Brennan series by American forensic anthropologist and author, Kathy Reichs. Dr Temperence Brennan is now living in a very fancy Centreville condo with her partner, ex SQ cop Andrew Ryan. As a forensic anthropologist, she is well used to dealing with smelly corpses, but the latest, possibly the victim of a lightning strike during a hurricane, has been in the river for a few days before getting caught in boat propellors.

She only has a few bits to work with, but there’s no evidence of a lightning strike; in fact, when they recover more parts, a certain hole in the chest points to cause of death; fingerprints are a challenge; but there is an unusual tattoo which points her in the direction of teenaged gangs on the Caribbean islands of Turks and Caicos. A phone call to their police department brings a visit, unnecessary in Tempe’s eyes, from Detective Superintendent Tiersa Musgrove of the RTCIPF.

But Ti Musgrove has an agenda: beyond Tempe’s stinky corpse. And she’s convincing enough that, while Ryan stays behind to help out his old SQ colleagues with Montreal outlaw crime gangs, Tempe flies to Turks and Caicos. It’s far from her longed-for vacation, though: a recently-discovered luxury fishing boat with five dead bodies aboard takes precedence over digging up the remains of two years-missing tourists.

Before these intriguing matters are satisfactorily resolved, there’s a missing FBI agent, a murdered cop, a freelance pathologist, a kosher butcher, a late-night prowler, and a consultant engineer in the mix. Tempe is accommodated in a luxury condo and enjoys some delicious local food, but her time on the beach doesn’t much feature towels or swimsuits.

As always, Reichs gives the reader a wealth of interesting information of the skeletal and post-mortem variety. While she persists with her cliff-hanger statements at the end of many chapters, at least she doesn’t have her heroine intentionally venturing into potentially dangerous situations all alone in this installment. Another interesting, informative and engrossing read.