ISBN: 978-1595143426
My Rating: 3 / 5
Adventure has always been in fourteen-year-old Tory Brennan’s blood. After all, she is the niece of world-famous forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. So when she moves to middle of nowhere Morris Island, South Carolina, to live with a marine biologist dad she’s never known, Tory does the best she can to adjust to her new life.
There she meets a group of local kids who are just as “Sci-Phile” as she is—science geeks who’ve grown up exploring the backwoods marsh-lands of nearby Loggerhead Island. But there’s something strange going on at the Loggerhead Research Institute… maybe even something deadly. After rescuing a stray wolfdog pup from a top-secret lab, Tory and her friends are exposed to a rare strain of canine parvovirus, changing them—and their DNA—forever.
Now, with newly heightened senses and canine-quick reflexes, they’ll have to solve a cold-case murder that’s suddenly become very hot … that is, if they can stay alive long enough to catch the killer’s scent.
Fortunately, they are now more than friends.
They are a pack.
They are VIRALS
(http://www.viralstheseries.com/)
My thoughts
First of all - this was my first Kathy Reichs' book and no, I'm one of the few not watching the series "Bones" - though due to lack of time than anything else.
I've got to say it took me a very long time until I got into the story, though once the group made their discovery on the island I was hooked! My second – and slightly smaller – problem was that I had to constantly remind myself I was not the target group for this book, it is definately aimed at a much younger reader.
As I’m writing this I haven’t really decided, yet, how to rate the story. I really liked the story, it had twists and turns, information and surprises that kept me glued to it. The main problem I had though was the protagonist only being 14 and in my opinion too “young” for solving the murder with her equally, but not quite as young group of three boys. It just didn’t sit well with me and in a way was unbelievable.
So the story is about Tory Brennan, the niece of “Bones” Temperance Brennan, and her three friends making a discovery on an island which leads to a murder investigation – a murder that happened a few decades ago, as well as the “rescue” of a wolf/dog out of a laboratory which was used for a science project. That has consequences for the group as well, not only the legal side of it!
Overall a reasonably good read, probably more enjoyable for the “younger ones” or the truly dedicated Kathy Reichs fans !
So in the end I settled with 3 stars.
