Kathy Reichs
Kathy Reichs, like her fictional creation, Temperance Brennan, is forensic anthropologist for the Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de médecine légale for the province of Quebec. A professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Reichs is a native of Chicago, where she received her Ph.D. at Northwestern. She now divides her time between Charlotte and Montreal and is a frequent expert witness in criminal trials. She was vice president of the American Academy of Forensic Science, serves on the Canadian National Police Services Advisory Board, and is one of only seventy-five forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology.
Her work as a forensic anthropologist is internationally recognized. She has traveled to Rwanda to testify at the United Nations Tribunal on Genocide, helped identify individuals from mass graves in Guatemala, and has done forensic work at Ground Zero in New York. For her work with CILHI she has identified war dead from World War II, Korea, and Southeast Asia.
Experiences she has had while working in forensic anthropology spawned her best-selling novels. Each novel plays on an aspect of forensic anthropology and matter classification that Reichs has personally used, allowing her main character Temperance Brennan’s work to be authentic. Déjà Dead brought her fame when it became a New York Times bestseller and won the 1997 Ellis Award for Best First novel. Death du Jour, Deadly Decisions, Fatal Voyage, Grave Secrets, Bare Bones, Monday Mourning, Cross Bones, Break No Bones and Bones to Ashes also became international and New York Times bestsellers. Devil Bones, her eleventh novel featuring Temperance Brennan, was a number 1 New York Times bestseller. Her twelfth novel, 206 Bones, will be published by Scribner in August 2009.
