So I had this fascination with old bones and being able to diagnose disease in old bones. And I was doing that, and started to do bone reports for the Channel 4 series 'Time Team'.
At the sight of a single bone, of a single piece of bone, I recognize and reconstruct the portion of the whole from which it would have been taken. The whole being to which this fragment belonged appears in my mind's eye.
I wasn't a regular, avid 'Bones' fan, but I'd certainly seen it. I liked the banter; I liked the people and that world.
I didn't invent forensic science and medicine. I just was one of the first people to recognize how interesting it is.
I originally worked as an archaeologist in North Carolina, and when bones were found police would take them out to the bones lady at the university, and that was me.
For years I've wanted to write a book about mummies, and had been following the science of mummy CT scans when the premise for 'The Keepsake' occurred to me: what if an 'ancient' mummy turns out to have a bullet in its leg? How does a modern murder victim get turned into a mummy?
Bones tell me the story of a person's life - how old they were, what their gender was, their ancestral background.
I've been on this kick reading about the beginning of forensic science: autopsies, fingerprinting, psychological profiling. I've been reading a lot of books about forensic anthropology.
I am more into things like CSI, but then Glee started and I was like, "Oh this is different."
Telling everyone I wanted to go into forensic anthropology was my form of rebellion.
Though a good cop, Luc Claudel has the patience of a firecracker, the sensitivity of Vlad the Impaler, and a persistent skepticism as to the value of forensic anthropology. Snappy dresser, though.
At the tips of the feathers there is air and at their base: blood. I hold up bones; I wish like broken glass they could court light....still I try to place these pieces back together, to set them firm, to make murdered girls live again.
