The Bone Code - Book Discovery Sheds Light on UCL phrenology collection

 

This 3 minute video gives some insight into the collection that Kathy Reichs mentions in her book Bone Code.

Character List for The Bone Code

The Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner’s Office (MCME) (North Carolina)

Temperance “Tempe” Brennan—the narrator, a forensic anthropologist who also works for LSJML (Montreal) and is often loaned to Charleston County coroner’s office (South Carolina); she also teaches biological and forensic anthropology at UNC-Charlotte

Dr. Samantha Nguyen—in charge of MCME office, Brennan’s newest boss

Eunice Flowers—MCME receptionist

Tereza Deacon—one of Brennan’s MCME cases: an adopted Bulgarian girl who dies in her NC home while parents are sailing in the Caribbean

Lloyd Thorn—the Deacon family lawyer

Charleston County (South Carolina)

Ebony Herrin—newly elected county coroner, an RN; borrows Brennan from MCME to investigate skeletons in a container washed up on SC coast

Dr. Walter Carl Klopp—pathologist for Charleston County

Brian—tech for coroner’s office

Tonia Vislosky—police detective with Charleston (SC) PD

Characters Related to South Carolina Container Case

Dr. Aubrey “Sullie” Sullivan Huger—owner of genetic testing company GeneFree (HQ in SC); has biochemistry and software engineering degrees; DNA reveals he’s distantly related to one of the SC container victims

Abilene Monger—receptionist/office manager at GeneFree

Digby France—grandfather of one of the SC container victims; Huger’s 1st cousin, once removed; living near Nashville, TN

Bonnie Bird Boatwright—France’s daughter

Harmony Wren Boatwright—France’s granddaughter (and Huger’s 2nd cousin, once removed)

Lena Chalamet—a Canadian girl Harmony meets on an online app; her mother and sister vanished near Montreal in 2002 when Lena was a toddler

Friends/Family/Other Characters Around North and South Carolina

Cat Bird—aka “Birdie,” Brennan’s cat and reluctant travel companion

Katy Petersons—Brennan’s daughter, deployed in Afghanistan but due stateside soon

Polly Susanne Beecroft—surviving twin who wants Brennan to analyze a death mask owned by her deceased twin, Harriet

Susanne Bouvier—Polly and Harriet’s grandmother

Sybil Bouvier—Susanne’s twin who went to Paris and vanished; Polly and Harriet bear an uncanny resemblance to Sybil and Susanne

Anne Turnip—Brennan’s best friend; she solves the death mask question

Tom “TT” Turnip—Anne’s ex-husband

Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Medicine Legale (LSJML) in Montreal

Dr. Pierre LaManche—a pathologist and Brennan’s boss at the LSJML

Helene Lauzon—coroner for LSJML and also a lawyer

Lisa Savard—LSJML morgue tech

Claire Willoughby—LSJML DNA tech

Dr. Lizzie Griesser—LSJML molecular biologist

Alfonse Vachon—Lauzon’s father, who sustains an unusual injury in an auto accident

Surete du Quebec (SQ) and Service de Police de la Ville de Montreal (SPVM)

Andrew Ryan—former SQ homicide detective, now a private investigator, and Brennan’s boyfriend

Yves Trout—detective in SQ who doesn’t impress Ryan

Luc Claudel—one of the detectives from SPVM who interviews Brennan when Ryan is injured in a hit-and-run

Michel Charbonneau—one of the detectives from SPVM who interviews Brennan when Ryan is injured in a hit-and-run

Characters Related to 2006 LSJML Container Case

Melanie Judith Chalmers—aka Melanie Chalamet; worked for vaccine manufacturing firm InovoVax near Montreal until 2002 when she quit reporting to work and disappears

Ella Chalamet—Chalmers’s youngest daughter who disappears with her mother

Dr. Arlo Murray—director of InovoVax, a PhD in molecular biology

Dora Eisenberg—clerk at InovoVax

Florence Sorg—Chalmers’s great-aunt; Chalmers was renting an apartment from Sorg when she and Ella disappeared

Dr. Alika Bangoboshe—biology professor at a university in the Boston (MA) area who helps Brennan understand Chalmers’s lab notes

Remi Arbour—manager of the cemetery where the skeletons from the 2006 case were buried and are exhumed

Ariel Caldrea—church member who attends interments of anonymous persons

Laura Bianchi—ambitious young freelance journalist who photographs exhumation