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Tracing the truth: Reichs, 54, travels the world examining human remains for clues to the identities of victims and evidence of how they died. "I give closure to families," she says, "and help bring the guilty to justice." She testified in Rwanda at the United Nations tribunal on genocide and helped identify a serial killer in Montreal who dismembered three women; he was later arrested.
At Ground Zero: Last fall, she worked 13-hour shilts for two weeks at New York City's World Trade Center site. The devastation, the thousands dead, made it the most massive killing field she'd ever worked. Reichs says she'll never forget it.
Novel ideaL: In 1995 she created medical examiner Temperance Brennan, the heroine of her series of best-selling novels. The fifth, Grave Secrets, hit bookstores in July. Reichs insists Brennan is not her alter ego, but admits they do have one trait in common -- a hot-blooded streak. "She's very passionate and sometimes lets her heart take over," Reichs says. "I'm that way, too, but never at work."