She’s the queen of crime. In the ten minutes it will take you to read this interview, she could solve a murder. Or devise yet another chilling murder mystery.
“I have the plot twists and ending in mind,” says Kathy Reichs matter-of-factly, with a pinch of pride, when asked how she sets in to write her thrillers. “If I stumble upon a great idea midstream, I will put it in.”
As the woman behind the bestselling Temperance Brennan crime novels that inspired the hit TV series Bones, starring David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel, Reichs’s passion for writing runs bone-deep. She doesn’t even have to go beyond her personal experience. A forensic anthropologist, she writes what she does — and that is exactly the selling point of her novels.
“What gives my books authenticity is that I am actually in the autopsy room, I go to the crime scene and I work in a full-spectrum forensics lab,” says Reichs. “All of my experience has come in handy when constructing my forensic thrillers.”
It is no wonder, then, that turning her work into fiction was a natural transition in many ways. Reichs recalls how it all started in 1994: she was just promoted to professor at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte when she started writing Deja Dead and creating a strong fictional female character with a science background — Tempe, her literary alter-ego.
“I had written textbooks and scientific articles, and forensic science was in the air,” says Reichs. “Also, I’d just worked on a serial murder case with some interesting elements to it, so I had an idea for a story. It all came together, and I saw an opportunity to do something new.”
It took her two years to write her first novel. “I was teaching full time and also doing forensic work,” she says. Deja Dead won her the Ellis Award in 1997, but of the 19 novels she’s written so far, Ashes to Bone, her tenth novel, remains her favourite.
Dealing with decomposed, burned and dismembered remains is just part of her normal day at work. “My line of work is not for the squeamish,” she says.
As an expert witness in criminal trials, she’s travelled to Tanzania to testify at the UN tribunal on genocide in Rwanda, helped exhume a mass grave in Guatemala and assisted with identifying remains found a the World Trade Center following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“Bones are the storytellers of a life, and I act as their voice. What I have to keep in mind is that I work with dead, but for the living,” says Reichs. “Whether it is an individual event or a major event, every resolution is rewarding in bringing peace to victims and their families.”
This March, this brilliant forensic scientist and novelist will be sharing some of her experience at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in Dubai. Unlike her quiet scientific work, she says life in writing is not as isolated as she imagined. “I have realised every writer must have a road show, a presentation for the public. For lectures, literary festivals, book tours…” In Dubai, however, she’s planning for some leisure time. “I want to spend a night out in the desert. At a hotel, of course!”
Ironically, unlike her alter-ego scientist crime-solver in Bones, Reichs says her life isn’t quite as action-packed as the TV character’s. The book version of Tempe is more like her, however. “We do exactly the same thing professionally. I work in a medico-legal and crime lab. I frequently do cases in North Carolina and in Quebec Province in Canada, but I also work all over the world. Tempe is a mother, and I have three children as well. Although, I do like my wine,” she says.
Grisly imagery aside, Reichs agrees that, contrary to forensic TV dramas and novels where every case gets solved, real life cases are divergent. Has there been one case that really sticks out for her? “Neely Smith,” says Reichs. “When I met her in 1981 she was the same age as my daughter. The difference was Neely was a skull, rib cage and lower jaw on a steel gurney, and it was my job to confirm her identity as the young girl snatched from her east Charlotte neighbourhood two months earlier.”
“Working on the bones of dead children is difficult,” she adds. “You have to focus on the job at hand and remember people are counting on you.”
Reichs clearly takes her duties seriously, from writing thrillers and working in a crime lab to producing the TV series Bones. Regarding her relations with the writing staff, she says: “They come to me with questions, and I give them the information. I read every script. It’s television, so there has to be a good story, and every story has to have a resolution.”
She also tries to keep it as real as possible. “We don’t make anything up. We don’t use technology that doesn’t actually exist,” Reichs says.
A highly-rated TV show, Bones has had a record-setting run, and even young children became hooked on crime and forensic investigation. That was one of the reasons behind starting the young-adult series Virals, which Reichs co-writes with her son, Brendan.
“Brendan and I noticed that a lot of young people were watching Bones, and that many were coming to my adult book signings,” Reichs says. “We knew that kids were jumping right into the adult books, despite the fact that some deal with subjects such as dismemberment and decomposition. So when Brendan proposed doing a [young adult] series, it seemed like a good idea.” So far, she’s written six novels in the series.
The Virals series follows the adventures of Tory Brennan, the 14-year-old grandniece of Tempe, who discovers an unsolved murder and becomes infected by an experimental virus that gives her special powers.
The Virals novels, Reichs says, are equally as complex as the Tempe Brennan novels. They contain multiple storylines and involve cold cases that must be solved with science-driven solutions. “One thing that differs is the dialogue,” she says. “Kids don’t talk like crusty old homicide detectives. Another is the social concerns. Kids’ lives differ from those of adults. As do their worries and concerns.”
Much like her young adult fans, Reichs’s interest in science started quite early in her life, and she was an avid reader of the Popular Archaeology book series. She remembers at her high school reunion, her peers were least surprised to know she had received her doctorate in bio-archaeology. “Everyone said ‘Oh yeah, you were always reading those archaeology books in high school’. So apparently, it was more than an interest,” she says.
For Reichs, the most satisfying thing is being able to create stories: “One cannot do that in real case work or courtroom testimony!” Looking back at her career, she says it surprises her. “So many diversions onto new and fulfilling pathways,” she says. “Academia, forensics, crime fiction and television.”
Now, life is a little less hectic. She’s 68, has quit teaching, her case load is significantly lighter than in the past, and she has more time to write.
“In the beginning, I didn’t have the luxury of being a full-time writer, so I had to write [in] every free minute that I had,” Reichs says. “I’d write all day if I was home and not on the road, at the lab, or at the university. It took organisation and discipline. Now, the balance has tipped in favour of writing. A necessary shift when doing one adult novel, one YA novel, a short story and screenplay each year!”
In the rapidly changing field of forensics, however, there are times when the pressure to top her last book gets to her. “I feel I always have to find something new. New science. New settings. New plot dynamics…”
So was she ever tempted to write chick flicks to escape the pressures? “Oh no,” Reichs says. “I am working on a new novel called Two Nights. It has new character, new setting, new premise…”
Suparna Dutt-D’Cunha is a writer based in Pune, India.
Kathy Reichs will take part in the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature to be held at InterContinental, Dubai Festival City, from March 3-11, 2017.
QUICK-FIVE:
What would I be if I hadn’t been a writer: A scientist
A book I wish I’d written: Silence of the Lambs
The first novel I read: Perhaps a Nancy Drew mystery.
A recent book I will remember in 10 years’ time: Euphoria, by Lily King.
A book I’d take to a deserted island: Instant Boatbuilding with Dynamite Payson
