Bones is one of my favorite television shows, so I've been both resistant to and curious about reading the books upon which the series is based: resistant because it's always a challenge to see the show/movie of a book you like (or vise versa in this case) and curious because I'm a fan of the science and characters in the show.
Let me introduce you to a character in the books:
- A woman in her 40s
- Divorced, with a college-aged daughter
- Recovered alcoholic who has been dry for 10 years
- Teaches at a college in North Carolina, US
- Works part-time at a small, crowded morgue in Montreal, Canada
- Likes cats, take-out food, and news shows
If you're a fan of the show, you're likely thinking that this is a character that just didn't make it from the books to the TV show. And you're right, of course. Oddly enough, though, her name is Temperance Brennan. She's a forensic anthropologist specializing in bones. Bones.
The first two books in the series and the crime cases they unravel are interesting, although they lack many of the characteristics and characters of the show. There is no science institute. Or Booth. Or Cam. Or Hodgins and Angela. Or Sweets. Or high-tech equipment. Or Washington DC. And there's a lot less science.
Some of these features and people may be coming in later shows, of course, but I sort of doubt it and the books are actually fine without them. They're nothing like the show, and in some ways this is a good thing; there is so little similarity that by the end of the second book I stopped thinking of them as the same. It even became surprising when someone would refer to the lead character as Temperance Brennan. Ultimately, it means I don't have to be disappointed by either the TV show or the books.
What I find really interesting is the fact that Reichs has been involved in the development of the TV series. It makes me wonder. Is this how she sees herself? What she wishes her life to be? (The books, and thus the series, are billed as being based on her actual life/career.) Or, is she simply meeting societal expectations? A younger, more attractive, highly intelligent, sexually open, emotionally disconnected woman somehow fits the bill--where an otherwise average woman of high intelligence doesn't. Which is interesting in itself.
I've been a fan of the Bones TV show for some time, and I know that it's based on a series of books written by a real-life forensic scientist. I've been meaning to check out Reichs's books--they're the type of thing I'd likely read on my Kindle when traveling--so when a friend passed Virals on to me, I decided it was a good opportunity to preview the author before purchasing any of her work myself.
At the start of the book, readers learn that fourteen-year-old Tory Brennan, the protagonist of Reichs's first teen book, has recently moved to live with her father upon the death of her mother. In a typical teen-directed storyline, the father and daughter don't know how to communicate, since Kit first learned he was, indeed, a father only upon the death of Tory's mother--the girl he had sex with during a summer camp in high school. Add an exotic location--an island off the South Carolina Coast, inhabited only by the families of scientists doing research in the even more isolated island further out to sea-- to the disconnected parent mix, and Reich has the perfect premise for Tory and three male friends (also children of workers on the island) to form a close bond in a short time. Their common isolation and high intelligence allow them to cross social boundaries that would usually keep them apart, thus allowing for their diverse interests and knowledge (lock picking, real estate databases, bones, computers, primate behavior...) to be drawn on when things get tense.
And things do get tense, as this is a murder mystery involving monkeys, wolfdogs, prep school snobs, and a 30+ year-old kidnapping. I don't think it's giving away too much of the plot to reveal that the four teens end up catching a designer virus, created in secret by the head of the island laboratory, since the book's title steers you that way. To find out how the virus affects the quartet, you'll have to tune in yourself, however. I'm guessing that readers will have the opportunity to see these Virals develop further as well, for the conclusion leaves things wide open for a sequel, one in which I wouldn't be surprised to see the appearance of iconic "Aunt Tempe"--Tory's recently discovered great-aunt on her father's side.
Overall I'd say that this is a pretty good first effort at a teen book. Reichs tells a pretty good story, and she manages to get some good science education in in the process. While she seems a bit off in language and the like at times, it's easy to overlook these adult lapses because she's chosen exceptionally intelligent teens to tell the story. I'm guessing that I'll enjoy her style more in the adult forensics series, which I will be adding to my Kindle for my trip later this month, but I liked this well enough that I'll keep my eyes out for the sequel as well.
