Kathy Reichs Heads to Television Land

Posted on July 27, 2005

USA Today reports that mystery lovers will have a new show to catch. Bones is a new Fox series about forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan who -- wait for it-- also writes novels about a forensic anthropologist named Kathy Reichs. Yes, you heard right. Of course, mystery lovers know that the joke is that Kathy Reichs is the real-life author who writes bestsellers starring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.

The real Reichs, who works for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for the state of North Carolina and for the Laboratoire des Sciences Judiciaires et de M�decine L�gale for the province of Quebec, says the idea for the series is "brilliant." "We hope my readers will get a kick out of that and realize that it's another manifestation of Tempe, and they are in on this inside joke," says Reichs, also a professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.
Bones, Reichs makes clear, is not based on any of her novels. But like their plots, the story lines for Bones are grounded in her expertise in a field that specializes in identifying remains so badly decomposed, burned or destroyed that standard identification methods are useless. "Each of those stories will be original," says Reichs, who is working with the show's writers. "It's a good outlet for ideas I don't use in the books."

For those readers whose taste runs more towards Fantasy or SF, the new series also stars David Boranaz, formerly the vampire with a soul star of Joss Whedon's Angel.

Kathy Reichs' eighth novel, Cross Bones (Scribner) is currently perched on all the bestseller lists.