Flash and Bones: A Novel

Kathy Reichs—#1 New York Times bestselling author and producer of the FOX television hit Bones—returns with a riveting new novel set in Charlotte, North Carolina, featuring America’s favorite forensic anthropologist, Dr. Temperance Brennan. Just as 200,000 fans are pouring into town for Race Week, a body is found in a barrel of asphalt next to the Charlotte Motor Speedway. The next day, a NASCAR crew member comes to Temperance Brennan’s office at the Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner to share a devastating story. Twelve years earlier, Wayne Gamble’s sister, Cindi, then a high school senior and aspiring racer, disappeared along with her boyfriend, Cale Lovette. Lovette kept company with a group of right-wing extremists known as the Patriot Posse. Could the body be Cindi’s? Or Cale’s? At the time of their disappearance, the FBI joined the investigation, only to terminate it weeks later. Was there a cover-up? As Tempe juggles multiple theories, the discovery of a strange, deadly substance in the barrel alongside the body throws everything into question. Then an employee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention goes missing during Race Week. Tempe can’t overlook the coincidence. Was this man using his lab chemicals for murder? Or is the explanation even more sinister? What other secrets lurk behind the festive veneer of Race Week? A turbocharged story of secrets and murder unfolds in this, the fourteenth thrilling novel in Reichs’s “cleverly plotted and expertly maintained series” (The New York Times Book Review). With the smash hit Bones about to enter its seventh season and in full syndication—and her most recent novel, Spider Bones, an instant New York Times bestseller—Kathy Reichs is at the top of her game. Q & A with Dr. Kathy Reichs In this bonus Q & A, the scribe behind Tempe Brennan takes questions on NASCAR, extremist groups, Tempe's love life, and the difference between writing a novel and penning a script for the TV show Bones on FOX. Q: Flash and Bones begins with the discovery of a body in a barrel of asphalt in a dump next to the Charlotte Motor Speedway, and characters from the racing world become implicated in the drama. What drew you to NASCAR as a backdrop? Are you yourself a racing fan? A: Prior to writing Flash and Bones, I had only passing knowledge of auto racing, having attended one event way back in the gray dawn of history. But almost every Charlottean knows a player in the game--be it a team owner, a mechanic, a sponsor, or a driver. It's hard not to get caught up in the excitement each May and October when hundreds of thousands converge on our burg for big races. Like Daytona or Darlington, Charlotte is an epicenter for the sport. And, as Tempe explains in the book, stock car racing originated with bootlegging in the Carolina mountains during Prohibition. I ended up writing NASCAR into the novel because of my long-time friend Barry Byrd, himself a huge racing enthusiast. Each time I began a new Temperance Brennan novel Barry would suggest that NASCAR would provide a rich background for a story. I finally realized he was right. Barry offered to introduce me to Jimmy Johnson and his team, to take me to the track, to include me with the gang attending the All Star Race and the Coca Cola 600. Barry followed through on that promise. I met track owners and managers, sports journalists, pit crew chiefs, and fans who had driven their Winnebagos from Portland, Houston, Teaneck, and Nashville. Thanks to Barry and the Smith family I enjoyed a top to bottom tour of the Charlotte Motor Speedway. My fascination with the adjacent landfill was, I fear, a source of some dismay. Q: Flash and Bones takes 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? A: 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 POW-MIA Accounting Command, the United States 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 Ashes a case takes Tempe to Tracadie, New Brunswick