Dr. Temperance Brennan, a highly skilled forensic anthropologist who works at the Jeffersonian Institution & writes novels as a sideline, has an uncanny ability to read clues left behind in a victim's bones. Law enforcement calls upon her to assist with murder investigations when the standard methods of identifying a body are useless. Brennan often finds herself partnered with special investigator Seely Booth of the FBI's Homicide Investigation Unit. Booth, a former Army sniper who mistrusts science & scientists, believes the key to solving crimes lies in discovering the truth from good old-fashioned detective work.

Brennan's equally brilliant colleagues at the Jeffersonian's Medico-Legal Lab include earthy & bawdy Angela Montenegro, who's created a unique way to render an original crime scene in a 3-D computer image; Brennan's assistant, Zack Addy, a young prodigy whose genius IQ actually gets in the way of finishing any of the several doctorates he's begun; 'the bug guy' Dr. Jack Hodgins, who's an expert on insects, spores & minerals, but conspiracy is his hobby; & Brennan's boss, the imposing lab director Dr. Daniel Goodman.

' We hope my readers will realize that it's another manifestation of Tempe, & that they are in on this inside joke' says the real Reichs



...

Haiti: one thinks of voodoo, Papa Doc, political violence & desperate poverty. In Bonjour Blanc Thomson explores all of the dread demons & eccentricities of this unhappy republic. He is initiated into the feared Bizzango religion, an African animist cult whose associates venerate a coffin & human skulls; he talks to zombies, the walking dead. Part history, part personal travelogue, Thomson introduces us to a lively gallery of eccentrics: a Russian Cossack, a Swiss chess champion who had studied Einstein, & an ancient voodoo priest. Yet Haiti is also noted for its history as a retreat for writers
- Anthony Trollope, Ian Flemming, Alexandre Dumas, Graham Greene & Eugene O' Neill
- & Thomson wonderfully explores their Haitian adventures.

...

It's the boom years of the 1980s, & life is closing in on Nathan Seltzer, who rarely travels outside his suddenly gentrifying Lower East Side neighbourhood. In between paralyzing bouts of claustrophobia, Nathan wonders whether he should cheat on his wife with Karoline, a German pastry maker whose parents may or may not have been Nazis. His father, Harry, is plotting with the 1960s boogaloo star Chow Mein Vega for the comeback of this dance craze. Meanwhile, a homicidal drug addict is terrorizing the neighbourhood. With its ensemble cast of unforgettable characters, Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue is a comedy of cultures about the old & the new, about Latinos, Jews, Sicilians & Germans. It's about struggling to hold onto life in a rapidly changing world, about food & sex & about how our lives are shaped by love & guilt. ...

It's the boom years of the 1980s, & life is closing in on Nathan Seltzer, who rarely travels outside his suddenly gentrifying Lower East Side neighbourhood. In between paralyzing bouts of claustrophobia, Nathan wonders whether he should cheat on his wife with Karoline, a German pastry maker whose parents may or may not have been Nazis. His father, Harry, is plotting with the 1960s boogaloo star Chow Mein Vega for the comeback of this dance craze. Meanwhile, a homicidal drug addict is terrorizing the neighbourhood. With its ensemble cast of unforgettable characters, Boogaloo on Second Avenue is a comedy of cultures about the old & the new, about Latinos, Jews, Sicilians & Germans. It's about struggling to hold onto life in a rapidly changing world, about food & sex & about how our lives are shaped by love & guilt. ...

It's the boom years of the 1980s, & life is closing in on Nathan Seltzer, who rarely travels outside his suddenly gentrifying Lower East Side neighbourhood. In between paralyzing bouts of claustrophobia, Nathan wonders whether he should cheat on his wife with Karoline, a German pastry maker whose parents may or may not have been Nazis. His father, Harry, is plotting with the 1960s boogaloo star Chow Mein Vega for the comeback of this dance craze. Meanwhile, a homicidal drug addict is terrorizing the neighbourhood. With its ensemble cast of unforgettable characters, Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue is a comedy of cultures about the old & the new, about Latinos, Jews, Sicilians & Germans. It's about struggling to hold onto life in a rapidly changing world, about food & sex & about how our lives are shaped by love & guilt. ...