“To the caribou,” I said.

Together we walked arm in arm, under that flawless blue sky, on that sunny spring day.

FROM THE FORENSIC FILES OF DR. KATHY REICHS

HYPOTHESES, PLOTS, AND VEGETABLE SOUP

I am a scientist. I am a writer. I tease secrets from the dead. I tease stories from my mind. At first glance the two endeavors seem worlds apart. In many ways they are. Yet I approach a forensic case and a work of fiction in a similar fashion.

Whether analyzing bones at the lab or outlining a Temperance Brennan novel or a Bones TV script on my home computer, the process is like preparing vegetable soup. At the outset, I gather observations, ideas, and experiences—every legume for itself—and then they simmer together in my brain.

Eventually, disparate facts and details connect. A nicked phalange. A cranial fracture. A trip by train. An old woman observed on a beach. Out of brothy chaos, a complex potage is born. A story, with plot, setting, and characters.

Typically, I begin to contemplate Tempe’s next adventure as I am wrapping up the current book. At the time I was finishing Flash and Bones and considering what would become Bones Are Forever, I was involved in three real-life child homicide cases. The victims died at various ages, in different cities, in unknown ways. One was a baby, wrapped in a blanket and left to mummify in an attic. One was a toddler, stuffed in a garbage bag and tossed in a wood. One was a preteen, buried on a riverbank below a bridge. All were girls.

One mother went to jail. One mother went free. To date, no suspect has been arrested in the third murder.

The death of innocents. This trio of disturbing cases gave rise to the dual themes of infanticide and the abuse of children (or the childlike) in Bones Are Forever.

I now had the main elements of my plot. Peas, carrots, and mushrooms swirling in the narrative broth. Next, a dip into the kettle for a setting. Where to send our heroine?

In June 2011, I had the great good fortune to be invited to the NorthWords Literary Festival in Yellowknife, NWT, Canada. In my two decades as forensic anthropologist at the Laboratoire de Sciences judiciaires et de médecine légale in Montreal, I’d often heard talk of the Far North. Until I made my own voyage there that spring, I’d sorely underestimated just how far that “far” really was.

While in Yellowknife, I met some of the most hardy and thermally tolerant souls on the planet. Many were aboriginals. Some were writers, poets, or photographers. Warm and welcoming, all. But the highlight of the trip was the place itself.