Customer Reviews

Deadly Decisions (Windsor Selection)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(28)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

When I read both of Kathy Reichs earlier Tempe Brennan stories I enjoyed them very much. However, something in the cover blurb for "Deadly Decision" put me off though, and I postponed buying it. A rash of negative reviews on Amazon reinforced this, and I only decided to read this book at last because the next in the series, "Fatal Voyage," is now out and I wanted to catch up. While "Deadly Decisions" isn't Reich's best, it is still a well told story. This is the inevitable plight of good writers that reviewers often over-react when their quality dips. I've done this myself.

The book turns on Tempe Brennan's reactions to the accidental killing of a 9 year old girl during a motorcycle gang killing. She feels so strongly that she volunteers to be the Forensic Lab's liaison with the police team working on motorcycle gang crime, called Carcajou. As a forensic anthropologist she is asked to help with the discovery of an old gang slaying site and in doing so also turns up the skull and crossbones of another young girl. These remains lead her to gang activities back in North Carolina. Tempe is drawn into a complex, deadly game with high powered, deadly opponents.

Tempe is devastated when her lover, Detective Andrew Ryan, is arrested for complicity in the drug deals and illicit trade of the gangs. Another blow comes when her nephew Kit is also drawn into the gang lifestyle by a newscaster, Lyle Crease, who is also extremely interested in Tempe's laboratory findings. There is yet another gang-style killing which arouses the anthropologist's suspicions that all is not well. Now Tempe finds herself in conflict on all sides, with gang members, Kit, and even other members of Operation Carcajou. She finds herself in danger as well, as the action mounts towards a graveside confrontation of awesome dimensions.

I found Reichs' writing up to her usual standard; terse, yet full of the details that make the forensic genre one of the most fascinating of the police procedurals. There is also a wealth of information on the operation of motorcycle gangs in Canada and the United States. Characterization is good as well. Reichs takes the time to breathe life into characters that many other writers would leave two dimensional. It is this and the fine details that make Kathy Reichs a successful writer.

I do have some reservations, though. As other reviewers have pointed out Reichs has settled into a formula of part Montreal, part North Carolina with a dash of family involvement. This is the third such story. While it is not blatant, it becomes noticeable if her novels are read rapidly, one right after another. Another thing that irritated me a bit was Tempe's knack for doing stupid things under pressure. This makes her look weak at critical moments, and introduces plot elements that are not really necessary. Yet, even with these flaws, this is a good, eminently readable novel. One that turned out much better than I had been led to expect.

In this, Kathy Reich's third book, Tempe Brennan, a forensic anthropologist, splits time between North Carolina and Montreal. She has been assigned as liaison to Operation Carcajou, a task force on criminal activities of motorcycle gangs.The setting for the story occurs mainly in the Canadian spring " when the thaw offers up the dead, hidden by the snows of a long winter". Two skeletons are found as well as the skull and leg bones of a teen whose body had been lain to rest in North Carolina in 1984. The mystery facing Tempe is to determine how the skull ended up in Montreal and what is the connection to the skeletons of the two motorcycle gang members buried with it.

To complicate her life and add depth to the story, Tempe's love interest , Andrew Ryan, has been arrested for selling drugs. Her nephew Kit, whom she treats like her own son, has come to visit and is fascinated by Harley Davidsons. As the story progresses, she becomes more concerned and worried as Kit becomes involved with intrusive slime-ball reporter Lyle Crease, who also has a love for motorcycles. She becomes afraid for Kit and feels a sense of urgency as bikers are killing each other in a power struggle for the drug trade. The decisions faced by these characters is the underlying theme of the story.

Tempe is presented as a three- dimensional, increasingly complex and sensitive woman expressing her beliefs, fears, attitudes, and feelings. The book is written in the first person so we are privy to Tempe's innermost thoughts. She is a serious and dedicated scientist but we also learn of her feelings toward victims, perpetrators, co-workers, family, and herself. From the beginning, she describes how she feels about children and how she respects victims of violence. She has vowed to use her talent of interpreting evidence and "reading bones" to identify and convict the perps of violent crime especially against children.

As Kathy Reich continues to write, she creates plots and characters with depth while using creative techniques that add to the suspense. For example, I found myself looking forward to the end of most chapters. They usually contained a surprise or made a point that moved the story, making it difficult to "put down the book ". She ties the story together brilliantly at the conclusion while leaving an openning and running a common thread to the next book if she wants to use it.

Highly Recommended!

When a nine-year-old girl ends up dead in Montreal as the latest victim of an ongoing biker war, forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan vows to help to find the killer. She joins a task force and with her we learn a lot about the groups involved. Vipers, Angels, Bandits, Heathens and so on. We learn who is affiliated with whom and who the warring factions are. Maybe this is a correct rendering of what's going on in Quebec, but in my opinion less would have been more here. It was simply impossible to remember all this information and put it to use throughout the book.

Apart from that I found the story to be an interesting insight into a culture I know next to nothing about. A bombing gone bad leads to the discovery of two long dead bikers and skull and leg bones of a teenage girl with links to Tempe's second home, North Carolina. Kit, Tempe's nephew becomes increasingly fascinated with the biker culture and boyfriend Andrew Ryan is out of the picture as he's suspected of selling drugs.

The story is a bit predictable but it's still fun to read. As with the first two books ("Deja Dead" and "Death Du Jour") coincidences keep piling up and, again, Ms Reichs cannot resist to lecture us about forensic details. This time it's blood splatters and while I usually enjoy reading about forensic science, she lost me pretty quick on this one.

I liked the first two books better, but this one is still good enough for a rainy Sunday afternoon. If you're not desperate to read it though, I'd recommend to wait for the paperback.

Ms. Reichs' opinions on bikers range from A to B: Achingly Awful to Bloody Beastly. That being said, don't expect any handsome, sensitive Hell's Angels riding through this book. Their powers of evil are limitless and are international in scope.

Forensic anthropologist, Tempe Brennan has an emergency call to Montreal. She is given the grisly task of identifying the bits and pieces of identical twin bikers who were blown up while carrying a bomb. I was baffled by the "emergency" nature of separating the remains of the two who had identical DNA. I agree it would be of professional interest, but couldn't make the leap of believing such niceties would make it critical to the investigation.

Most of the action is in Montreal, and the tie-in to Charlotte, N.C. is tenuous. I was disappointed in this book and feel it is the weakest of the three Tempe Brennan novels. The commute between NC and Quebec is beginning to box in the series. There are just so many logical connections between Quebec and North Carolina, and I think Tempe has used them all.

There are some excellent descriptive passages, particularly of Montreal and some sharp fast character takes. However, there are too many characters to keep track off, and most of them no one you would want to know or care what happens to them. I was uneasy with Cornwell-clone aspects (an unruly nephew who worries Tempe to distraction-shades of Lucy!) and I hope this will not increase.

I enjoyed Ms. Reichs' two previous novels, and have by no means given up on her. I look forward to Tempe's next excursion and wish for an intriguing investigation.

I read Ms. Reich's first two novels, Deja Dead and Death DuJour. I was interested to learn about forensic anthropologists, found the stories exciting, and thought the personal relationship development between the characters of Tempe Brennan and Andrew Ryan, was well done. However, this third novel left me a little disappointed.

Ms. Reich did a good job of introducing all of the returning characters for those new to her books and without overkill for those familiar with them. However, for the third time to have a mystery connected to her roots in the Carolinas was unbelievable and for the third time to have her best friend or a family member directly involved with the crime and/or danger was unbelievable. So many recounts of Tempe returning phone calls, exercising, fixing dinner, and French geographical references became tedious. The developments (or lack thereof) with Tempe and Andrew were o.k., but left me hanging and annoyed at the end.

I'll probably read book #4, but mostly to find out what happens with Andrew Ryan and with hope that the next story will get back to more anthropology details. I like Ms. Reich's characters and the plots are varied and interesting. I hope she keeps writing.

Forensic anthropologist, Tempe Brennan, has always taken her feelings out of her work, this case is different. The death of a nine year-old girl, caught in the crossfire of rival biker gangs, sends Tempe on a mission...bring the killers to justice.

As Tempe begins her case she will be thrust into a dark world, where every truth in masked in a lie. As her case takes shape, she will find the skeleton of a missing teenager, a young girl who was running with the bike gangs. She will also confront awful truths about her friend Andrew, who has disappeared after being wanted by the police. Using her forensic skills, and some of the latest technology, Tempe, must solve this puzzle, and catch the killers, before the next death is her own.

"Deadly Decisions" is a first rate forensic's thriller. The pace is fast, the plot is complex, and the writing, top-notch.

Kathy Reichs has created a character who stomps on "Scarpetta" territory, and more than gets a way with it. Fans of well-written, suspense novels should dive into this one.

A MUST read!

Nick Gonnella

Kathy Reichs does not like biker gangs. Lest the reader forget that fact, she unceasingly uses every nonhuman metaphor she can think up (and she thinks up MANY; this is one of her talents) to describe the ungodly bikers who engage in a turf war in Montreal, slaying themselves and innocent victims caught in the crossfire.

The result is a hodgepodge of cliches and unbelievable plot threads, interspersed with the interminable lectures we have come to expect from this author. (In the first book, it was pages of explanation on how stab wounds on bones can be differentiated; in the second book it was a nauseating treatise on maggots feeding upon dead human bodies; in this book, it is a lengthy discourse on the physics of blood splatters.)

And thereby lies the crux of Reich's problem: Obviously a brilliant forensic anthropologist herself, she cannot decide whether to write textbooks or fiction. This book is an uneasy blend of both.

As a result, her characterizations not only lack believability, they are beginning to vary seriously from book to book. Case in point: the heroine (Tempe Brennan) has morphed from a sharp-as-nails tough guy to a self-doubting, over-eating mess. If Reichs is trying to tell us that the job is getting to Brennan, she has not done so in any way I can accept or believe.

Then there is Brennan's impossibly callow jerk of a nephew, Kit. In "Death du Jour," Kit appears briefly as an intelligent, well-spoken and mature kid (he's 19). In this book, he is whiny, selfish, more than a little stupid, and displays a vocabulary purported to be Texan, but which, I am fairly sure, no young man, Texan or otherwise, has ever used. It's embarrassing. Kit bumbles straight into a next of biker trouble because of his worship of Harley cycles. The new Dr. Brennan, so strong and forceful in the other books, is powerless to help him, so she has lots of nightmares.

Even Brennan's arch rival, the nasty detective Claudel, now sports a more-than-passing knowledge of rock music, a new, hip, vocabulary, and the inability to remember that Brennan is a doctor. He now calls her "Ms." Brennan, quite a departure.

I could go on, but I won't. People tell me that the next book in this series, "Fatal Voyage," is much better, and I hope so. Reichs burst on the scene in a wave of genius, and has deteriorated with each succeeding book. I hope this one is the nadir. I gave it 3 stars because the last 50 pages pick up enormously, and actually provide an interesting ending. I would not tell anyone not to read it, but be warned: it's a tedious undertaking.

Forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan gets involved in the killings that occur when rivalling motor gangs start killing each other's members in Montreal in order to get hold of the profitable drug trade in the city. She uses all her forensic skills to determine who the victims are and who killed them. Meanwhile her 19 year old nephew Kit is staying at her place and his obsession with Harley Davidsons gets him in contact with some of the most dangerous figures of the gangs.

The descriptions of the forensic work are revealing and realistic, which is no wonder when one considers that Kathy Reichs is a forensic anthropologist herself. However, the descriptions of all the rivalling motorclubs and their connections are tedious and every now and then I lost track who was a member of which motor club and which motor club had a feud with which other motor club.

Temperence Brennan is back in her third installment as she attempts to solve another murder mystery as a forensic anthropologist. This time she finds herself summonsed back to Montreal from the US in order to help with a growing number of biker gang murders that have been committed by members of groups known as Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs. But when an innocent 9 year old becomes a victim of the gang wars Tempe pledges her efforts to find the killers and bring them to justice. However, when her motorcycle enthusiast nephew comes to visit, the violence comes closer to home than Tempe would have ever anticipated. She is faced with the horrifying idea that her actions and role in the investigation may be causing results she never intended.

Kathy Reichs is on the right path with this third Tempe novel. In the first two, her main character displayed significant amounts of self pity and she spent a lot of time lamenting her single lifestyle. There were also too many times when Tempe was unsure professionally of what the facts before her meant. However in this installment, Tempe is much more sure of herself professionally, and while her personal life is a part of the story, it does not detract from the murder mystery plot that is why readers are really turning the pages.

Despite being on the right track, all is not perfect with this book. It is still completely ridiculous to believe that, for the second time, the evil-doings span both Montreal, Canada and the US Carolinas - the two places that Tempe happens to live. And while it is a huge improvement on the first two in the series, it has not yet risen to the level of "chilling winner" as some reviewers have indicated. Overall, however, it is definitely a step in the right direction for Reichs.

"Deadly Decisions," the third novel in the Temperance Brennan series, begins with the murder of a 9 year old girl who was caught in the crossfire of rival motorcycle gangs. As Brennan investigates the little girl's death, she stumbles upon the deadly and vicious motorcycle gang lifestyle and the trail of bodies that they leave in their wake. Soon Brennan's own nephew is immersing himself in this seedy underworld and it is up to Brennan to save the day.

I adore Reichs' novels! Once I begin reading one, I cannot put it down! Very fast paced thrillers that will keep you hanging on every word! I was genuine afraid to read Reichs at first because she is so often compared with Patricia Cornwell, who I detest. But Reichs is nothing like Cornwell, thankfully! Her characters are actually likeable and the mysteries have a freshness to them. I highly recommend the Temperance Brennan series.