Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... Deja Dead: A Novel (1) (A Temperance Brennan Novel) (original 1997; edition 2020)by Kathy Reichs (Author)
Work InformationDéjà Dead by Kathy Reichs (1997)
Female Author (195) Books Read in 2023 (135) Female Protagonist (413) » 12 more First Novels (56) Books About Murder (70) KayStJ's to-read list (280) Kathy Reichs (1) Everand 2023 (47) Books Read in 2006 (286) READ in 2023 (208) Detective Stories (274) Global Mysteries (3) Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. An engaging crime novel and it is interesting to read what goes into solving crimes such as these and how they can all link together. ( ) As I embarked up this novel I had very high hopes for it. Apart from any other considerations, I was intrigued by the setting, having previously had no knowledge about Montreal at all. Sadly, my initial rapture faded fairly quickly. As I understand it, I believe Kathy Reichs was prompted to write this novel from a sense of pique at the success of Patricia Cornwell’s books featuring Dr Kay Scarpetta. Apparently Reichs felt that Scarpetta’s role and background was very close to her own, and believed that she might be able to do better. I am not convinced that she has, although to be fair, after a great start with her first four or five novels, I think that Patricia Cornwell started to lose her way, too. However, enter Dr Temperance (‘Tempé’) Brennan, her counterpart to Lay Scarpetta. Brennan is American but has spent the last year working in Montreal, liaising with the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal, the local municipal police force, and the Sûreté du Québec which covers the whole of the Province. While I am sure that the technical content relating to the forensic anthropology and autopsy procedures is correct (or at least more than good enough to convince a scientific ignoramus such as myself), I found the story less than gripping. For a start it seems unnecessarily long, coming in at around 560 pages in the edition I read. That included an awful lot of padding. I also felt that Ms Reichs succumbed to too many crime story tropes. Right from the beginning, Tempé’ finds herself clashing with Detective Claudel, the officer leading the investigation. While I am glad that I read this, I doubt that I will be pressing much further with the series. I picked up this book in the airport. I wanted a crime thriller, and this seemed to fit the bill. I had assumed that it would be similar to the Bones TV show, and it took me a while to get into it when I realized it was nothing like Bones at all! The only thing the two have in common is the name of the main character, Temperance Brennan. But that's really where the similarities end. Once I came to terms with that, I found myself quickly sucked in to the novel, and I ended up enjoying it a great deal. The characters were vivid and well realized, and I enjoyed the setting (Montreal) more than I expected to. As a Canadian who's frequently visited Montreal, it was nice to see that Reichs has done her homework. The criminal anthropology work also came across as completely authentic, no doubt because Reichs is a forensic anthropologist herself. I was also pleasantly surprised by the smooth, engaging writing - not often present in a debut novel. I did have a few minor issues with the story (namely the fact that Tempe keeps making really dumb decisions and putting her life in danger in the process), but I was able to overlook those, suspend my disbelief, and thoroughly enjoy the story. I'm looking forward to the next one in the series! no reviews | add a review
Belongs to SeriesIs contained inIs abridged in
It's June in Montreal, and Dr. Temperance Brennan, who has left a shaky marriage back home in North Carolina to take on the challenging assignment of Director of Forensic Anthropology for the province of Quebec, looks forward to a relaxing weekend in beautiful Quebec City. First, though, she must stop at a newly uncovered burial site in the heart of the city. The remains are probably old and only of archeological interest, but Tempe must make sure they're not a case for the police. One look at the decomposed and decapitated corpse, stored neatly in plastic bags, tells her she'll spend the weekend in the crime lab. Something about the crime scene is familiar to Tempe: the stashing of the body parts; the meticulous dismemberment. As a pattern continues to emerge, Tempe calls upon all her forensic skills, including bone, tooth/dental, and bitemark analysis and x-ray microflourescence to convince the police that the cases are related and to try to stop the killer before he strikes again. Told with lacerating authenticity and passion, Deja Dead is both poignant and terrifying as it hurtles toward its breathtaking conclusion and instantly catapults Kathy Reich into the top ranks of crime authors. No library descriptions found.
|
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |