KATHY Reichs is often cited as the new queen of slice 'em and dice'em thriller fiction after the dramatic decline of the previous ruler, Patricia Cornwell. But for some reason she just doesn't do it for me.

As a forensic anthropologist in the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in the State of North Carolina, she obviously knows her way around a body, but I'm not sure her grasp of character development is quite as firm.

The main problem with her books is that her characters tend to be pretty unlikeable. Not least her main protagonist, Dr Temperence Brennan, who comes across as the sort of person women bitch about in the loo at parties and avoid like the plague at all other times.

Tempe might be a top forensic anthropologist in Montreal and North Carolina, she might be lovely to look at and she might even have the morals of a saint (her latest adventure sees her fighting to identify the bodies of women and children slaughtered by the state in Guatemala), but you just wouldn't want to meet her down the pub for a pint.

Grave Secrets is a very efficiently written thriller, with nicely complicated plot lines and a lot of colourful forensic detail to get to grips with. But Reichs' idiosyncratic use of language, which leads to phrases like "fear and exhaustion squelched all desire for food", jokes that don't make any sense to man nor beast and a cast of characters with less warmth than the corpses they work with make it a less than satisfying experience.

Unfortunately for all us slice' em and dice 'em devotees, Kathy Reichs might be the new Patricia Cornwell, but Dr Temperence Brennan is no Dr Kay Scarpetta.

Updated: 10:44 Wednesday, August 21, 2002