Kathy Reichs: Flash and Bones

2.Flash and Bonestakes place entirely in Tempe Brennan’s hometown of Charlotte.Spider Bones,on the other hand, begins in Montreal, where Tempe occasionally works, then moves to Hawaii. Other books have taken Tempe to Chicago, Israel, and Guatemala. How do you decide where to set your next novel? In what city do you spend most of your own time these days?

Setting is a living, breathing part of each story I write. When Tempe travels, her destination is always a place that I know well, one in which I have plied my trade or spent time doing research.

I work and live in Charlotte, so Tempe does, too. Like her, I am a commuter, shifting regularly from North Carolina to Quebec, where I consult to the Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de médecine légale in Montreal. Yep. I have the mother lode of frequent flier miles.

In Spider Bones Tempe heads to Hawaii to pursue a case for JPAC, the Joint Prisoners of War, Missing in Action Accounting Command, the U.S. military facility dedicated to identifying the remains of servicemen and -women who have died far from home. Easy choice. I consulted for this lab for many years.

In Grave Secrets Tempe exhumes a mass grave in Guatemala. In the year 2000 I was invited to do the same by the Guatemalan Foundation for Forensic Anthropology.

In Bones to Ashe s a case takes Tempe to Tracadie, New Brunswick. This setting was suggested by an exhumation and analysis I performed for an Arcadian family living in that province.

In 206 Bones Tempe flies to Chicago. Another no-brainer. That’s where I was born.

You get the idea. It’s better to observe firsthand than to make things up.

3. Another dominant theme ofFlash and Bonesis right-wing extremism, a subject about which you’ve written before. Members of a white supremacist group figure as suspects in the book. How did you become interested in these factions of American society?

Extremist ideas do not offend me. In my view, people are free to believe what they will. Extremism that hurts others offends me greatly.

In Cross Bones I wrote of religious extremism—belief systems that refuse to accept the legitimacy of differing worldviews. In that story events take Tempe to Israel and bring her into contact with fringe groups who use violence to impose their ideologies and customs on others.

Political extremism can be equally dangerous, whether coming from the left or the right. In recent years hatred and intolerance have led to deadly attacks by domestic terrorists in the United States. Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber; Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, the Oklahoma City bombers; Eric Rudolph, the Olympic Park Bomber. Such individuals choose to kill their fellow citizens based on their own warped definitions of morality.

After years on the run, Rudolph was arrested while digging through a Dumpster in western North Carolina, about a four-hour drive from Charlotte. I wondered who else might be hiding in the woods and back roads of my state. In Flash and Bones, I imagine a group of people who come from the extreme mold of Eric Rudolph and his narrow-minded brethren.

Preferring comfort in numbers, some right-wing fanatics form clubs or militias. That’s the case in Flash and Bones. Tempe is drawn into the world of an extremist group and must learn their philosophy and decipher their code of conduct in order to determine their role in a cold case that disturbs her greatly.

4. Over the course ofFlash and Bones,Tempe develops a flirtatious relationship with Cotton Galimore, the head of security at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Her old flame Lieutenant-détective Andrew Ryan and sometime suitor and Charlotte attorney Charlie Hunt only make minor appearances in the story. How do you decide what Tempe’s romantic life is going to be like in each novel? Can you give readers any hints about where it might go in the future?It’s true. Tempe’s love life is in a bit of a muddle. Andrew Ryan is preoccupied with his daughter, Lily, who is in drug rehab. And miles away. Charlie Hunt is absorbed in a complex legal case. Miles away in another sense.

Enter Cotton Galimore, strong, intelligent, and smoking hot. Sadly, Galimore’s past isn’t exactly spick-and-span. Joe Hawkins distrusts him. Skinny Slidell loathes him. And the guy is cocky as hell.

But the heart wants what the heart wants. Inexplicably, Tempe is drawn to the disgraced ex-cop. Is Galimore really as bad as her colleagues say? Should she steer clear as everyone advises?

Nope. No spoilers here.

5.Flash and Bones,as with all your books, contains unique forensic twists: the body found at the dump is lodged in a barrel of asphalt, which Tempe must painstakingly dismantle. Later, chemical tests at the CDC reveal the presence of a surprising toxin in the remains. What was the inspiration for these forensic discoveries? Have you seen such corpses in your real-life work, or, in writing your novels, do you imagine the strange possibilities of homicides you haven’t yet encountered?

I am like a scavenger, always on the lookout for a snack. But instead of food, it’s criminal twists I’m after. I keep my eyes and ears open for interesting characters, bizarre case elements, and cutting-edge science. A Temperance Brennan plot may derive from any number of sources.

Starting point. I draw ideas from forensic anthropology analyses that I perform myself. My own cases.

Move one circle out. The LSJML (my Montreal gig) is a full-spectrum medico-legal and crime lab. While there I am able to observe what goes on around me, to learn about the newest thing in ballistics, toxicology, pathology, or DNA.

Continue outward. Forensic scientists love to talk to each other about their cases. Colleagues often suggest ideas for Temperance Brennan stories based on investigations in which they have been involved.

Occasionally a plot twist is inspired by a presentation I attend at a professional conference. The annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences provides particularly rich fodder. Articles in research journals also get the old brain pumping.

From my own caseload, and then from conversing, listening, watching, and reading, I get what I think of as “nugget” ideas, my core story concepts. Then, for both legal and ethical reasons, I change everything—names, dates, places, personal details. I then play the “what if?” game, and spin the nugget off into multilayered fiction.

6. In addition to writing the Temperance Brennan novels (and now the young adult novels featuring Tempe’s niece), you’ve also written a script for the FOX seriesBones,based on your books. How does writing a TV script differ from writing your novels? Is one harder than the other?

I am a producer on Bones . One of many. Just look at our credits. Mainly, I work with the writers, answering questions, providing bone clues, correcting terminology. Over the course of six seasons, I have read more than one hundred and thirty scripts. Though a television script is quite different from a book, there is some commonality.

For me the similarity between a Temperance Brennan novel and a Bones teleplay lies in structure. My books typically have a lot going on—an A story, a B story, maybe even a C. Ditto a Bones episode.

In Flash and Bones Tempe is asked to identify a body found in a barrel. That’s the A story. Simultaneously, she is drawn into the search for a missing teenage couple. The B story. And, all the while, there’s her complicated love life. C story.