Kathy Reichs

Kathleen (Kathy) Reichs is a forensic anthropologist, American crime writer, and professor who was born on July 7, 1948, in Chicago, Illinois. She attended American University, where she studied anthropology, and proceeded to attend Northwestern University, where she earned a PhD in skeletal biology and archaeology ("Kathy Reichs Biography"). Due to her experience in skeletal identification and analysis, Reichs was asked by local authorities to examine some case information, which led her to take interest in the subfield of forensic anthropology. At the start of her career, she was a professor at the University of North Carolina and taught forensic anthropology. Reichs also taught at universities in Québec, where she was able to perfect the language of French. Being the only certified French-speaking forensic anthropologist in North America, Kathy decided to reside part-time each year in Montreal in order to work as a forensic anthropologist for the Quebec provincial police. (Moredock, 2009).

Although Kathy Reichs spent a significant amount of time teaching in the classroom, she also played a major role in several other areas. During her career, Reichs taught FBI agents in Virginia how to detect and recover remains, unearthed and analyzed a mass grave in Guatemala, and identified victims in both WWII and the terrorist attacks that occurred on 9/11 (Kathy Reichs, 2019). Reichs has made noteworthy contributions to the fields of both anthropology and criminal justice in multiple countries.

Due to her experience and involvement, Reichs became inspired to write novels that related to cases she had participated in solving. At first, she was unsuccessful in creating a story in which she was proud of. However, she was determined to publish a novel. Thus, she continued to develop her initial novel by rewriting it, almost entirely. In 1997, she achieved her goal and published her first novel, Deja Dead, which was inspired by famous dismemberment cases Reichs worked on in Canada. ("Kathleen J. Reichs Biography", 2007). Deja Dead became a bestseller in the United States, and two years later Reichs published the heavily demanded sequel to her novel. The story became a series that contained 18 separate books, and in 2005 a TV series titled "Bones", named after the main character Temperance "Bones" Brennan, was released and was based off of Reich's renowned novels ("Kathleen J. Reichs Biography", 2007). Currently, Reichs is 72 years old and continues to write novels. She published two novels at the beginning of this year, and she had plans to complete a book tour, however, these plans were cancelled due to COVID-19.