Reichs is also a university professor and leading forensic anthropologist, whose literary creation ''Tempe'' Brennan inspired the television series, Bones.
She will speak in the Dunning-ham Suite in the Dunedin City Library on September 22 with Dunedin crime writer Vanda Symon.
Reichs is vice-president of the American Academy of Forensic Scientists; a member of the RCMP National Police Services Advisory Council; forensic anthropologist to the province of Quebec; and a professor of forensic anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Random House New Zealand publicist Jennifer Balle said Reichs would speak about her colourful career.
For years Reichs was a consultant to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in North Carolina, and continued in that role for the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Medecine Legale in Quebec.
She travelled to Rwanda to testify at the UN tribunal on genocide, and helped exhume a mass grave in Guatemala.
Reichs also assisted with identifying remains found at ground zero at the World Trade Centre after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
She has written 15 bestselling Temperance Brennan novels, the most recent including Mortal Remains, Flash and Bones and Bones Are Forever. Reichs has also recently launched a new teen series, Virals, with her son, Brendan Reichs.
