Bare Bones

I am a fan of Kathy Reich and have read all her books and listened to all available too but this was a disappontment. No real suspense, the science was nothing new and the romance was boring.
I also dislike this new narrator. She does not have the same kanck for accents that the previous narrator Kateherine Borowitz does.

The narration ruins this audiobook for several reasons. First, the accents are hideous. I spent most of my life in North Carolina and never heard anything resembling the "southern accents" in this audiobook. Even the most urban creatures such as pathologists and Charlotte detectives are assigned a backwoods drawl that is so poorly delivered that it borders on the comic.

Second, the mispronunciations are distracting and sometimes misleading. Place names are routinely mangled, even for relatively well-known cities such as Manteo. At one point the word decedent is repeatedly rendered as descendent.

Third, the delivery often goes astray distorting the meaning of the text. For instance at one point there is a discussion regarding lesions on the body of an airplane crash victim. The narrator delivers a passage in such a way that as to suggest that the victim did not have even one lesion on his face. It is abundantly clear from the context however that what the author intended to convey was that the victim did not have a face as a result of the violent deceleration trauma.

The problems with the delivery are legion; only a few are outlined above. Ms. Reichs is an engaging author. One would be well advised to skip this audio and pick up a copy of the paper version of this book.

I didn't bother to download the unabridged version when it was offered at no further cost. The abridged version was quite tedious enough for me. No suspense. No plot twists. No intellectual challenges. Even the love interest was cornball and pedestrian. Yawn....

I like Ms. Reichs works, but this one... not so much. There seemed to be a few too many characters and threads, making it hard to follow at times. Also, the ending is rather anti-climactic and unsatisfying.

What REALLY drops the stock is the narrator. The Southern accent she tries to affect is horrible! It sounds more like a mockery than an effort to imitate it. In fact, it's absolutely grating.

So I gave the book a 4, but the narration a 2.

I read Bare Bones in the unabridged version, and yes, it did get confusing a couple of times, but I was hooked from the first sentence. The story was always moving and the way it all tied up at the end was very interesting.

I became a fan of Kathy Reichs after reading Grave Secrets, which I also downloaded from audible.com. So, I was anxious to read Bare Bones when it became available. The story line is quite good, but I found it somewhat hard to follow, and had to listen to some sections a couple of times. When I got to the end, I realized that I had erroneously downloaded the abridged version. As a matter of policy, I NEVER read the abridged version because important elements of the story have been removed. I realize that it was hard to follow because essential portions of the story line were omitted. Thus, my error caused me to waste five hours of valuable reading time, and resulted in an unsatisfying experience. My suggestion: stick with unabridged books in all cases.

Tempe Brennan, as always, puts everything together in the last few pages. Entertaining, although sometimes it is hard to keep the characters straight.

I have been enjoying the Brennan series and this is exactly what you would expect if you have listened to any of the others.
For new listeners to the series, the forensics are accurate but are not overblown, they take a second seat to plot and character. The books are classic detective tales with a fully fleshed out female lead. Internal dialog adds depth to the character.
All in all very much worth listening to.

I really enjoyed Grave Secrets and Deja Dead. This one is not up the the previous standards. I was constantly confused and the ending I felt was anti-climactic. I felt that much of the storyline was contrived and boring. I hope the future books of hers are better.

But a good listen (read) nevertheless.