Customer Reviews

Death Du Jour

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(64)
3 star:		(31)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

For the first 25 pages I was enthralled by the writing and the forensics. Then the coincidences piled up: 1. In Quebec, Tempe investigates the fiery death of a family (later found to be killed by a quasi-religious cult.) 2. In a totally separate storyline, Tempe is asked by a nun acquaintance to find the nun's missing niece ... who JUST HAPPENS to have links to the first murder. 3. Weeks later, Tempe's relaxing on an island off the Carolina coast when she JUST HAPPENS to discover the buried bodies of two murdered women. Guess what? This new crime JUST HAPPENS to be related to those murders way up north in Quebec. 4. Tempe's troubled sister, living in ANOTHER state, JUST HAPPENS to have recently joined the same murderous cult responsible for all these murders! Tempe doesn't have to pursue the investigation -- the clues just come flying to her from points all over North America. I am amazed that so many self-described mystery buffs do not even comment on these faults in their reviews. Did they not notice them? Or are they so dazzled by the forensic details (which are indeed excellent)that they forgot the basics of a believable plot?

A different kind of professional female sleuth with the feel of non-fiction fiction. The author is a real-life forensic anthropologist for the State of North Carolina, and is also a professor at The University of North Carolina. The author's character has been divorced, has a 'wacky' sister and a grown-up daughter,is working for the Province of Quebec and teaches at university as well. Dr. Temperance Brennan, the first person narrator, has co-workers who hate her and a male detective who irritates and attracts her. Real excitement is constantly being created because the distractions caused by her personal life interfere with her sleuthing, which the reader can figure out by a few minutes. Despite the University credentials of both character and author, the book is very readable and fast. If bone science doesn't give you the creeps, I suggest taking this book with you on summer vacation. (There is a lot of snowing in the book,a mental boost if the sun is getting too much.)

After the disappointment of Patricia Cornwall's latest books, I've greatly enjoyed Kathy Reichs new series, which features Tempe Brennan, a forensic anthropologist based in Montreal and Charlotte. In this book, Charlotte and other parts of North Carolina are much more central to the story than in Reichs' earlier Deja Dead.

The plot is entertaining and you'll learn a few things along the way that you probably didn't really want to know about maggot life cycles.

Although I found Death du Jour not quite as terrifying as Deja Dead, it's a definite page turner. Recommended for the non-squeamish...but don't read it when you're home alone.

I bought the author's 1st book, Deja Dead, because I was glad to have found another female medical examiner protagonist similar to Cornwell's Dr. Scarpetta. Still, Deja Dead (Reichs' 1st novel) wasn't as good as when Cornwell is at her, now, occasional best. Death Du Jour, being another Dr. Brennan novel, was a very welcome sight. Then after reading Death Du Jour you see there is a definite improvement over Deja Dead. Reich's story telling skills have improved considerably; now the author really communicates with, and grabs, the reader - she keeps the book moving. I read so many books and not many lately have kept my attention as this one has. If you were iffy with Deja Dead give it another chance with this book.

My only gripe is her wacky sister. Not only was there absolutely no need for her but she took something away from the story and the main character. They are way too different and not believable at all. But not for the sister's appearance I would have rated it 5 stars.

I'll anxiously await and will buy Reichs next book (new character or not) when it comes out. I hope the author doesn't feel the need to constantly inject family members into her story as Cornwell has done; ruining many storylines by focusing on the neice (a consensus among all my reader friends). We all want to read about the character and her unique professional encounters not her relatives.

Congratulations to Ms. Reich on an excellent and intelligent read.

Generally I do not read a lot of narrative prose, but when I do my preferred genre is the murder mystery. My friend Mo recommended Kathy Reichs' Death du Jour to me because of my interest in the sciences and anthropology. I have to admit the book sat on my shelf for about 3 months before I finally got around to examining even the cover, but when I did the author's professional credentials engaged my attention. Dr Reichs is a forensic anthropologist trained at Northwestern University and employed by both the state of North Carolina and the Province of Quebec as an expert in forensics and by the University of North Carolina as a professor of anthropology. Her expertise is definitely reflected in the content of the novel. After reading the first few lines of the book I was hooked. So much was this the case that I finished it in the space of a single afternoon.

Each of the characters is a real person with a distinct personality. The heroine Tempe, a forensic anthropologist--who is much as I imagine Dr. Reichs to be herself--is clearly defined as an individual. She has a past and a present and family relationships and problems much as we all do. Her sister Harry is not simply a carbon copy of the heroine. She too is an individual.

The mise en scene of the action in both Quebec and North Carolina are vividly recreated for the reader. One can almost feel the damp bone-chilling cold of a Canadian winter and the balmy days of a southeastern coastline. Incorporating the little details of activity such as specific restaurants eaten at and things ordered there, specifics of the medical examiners' offices in Montreal and how the character proceeds with her work there add verisimilitude to the narrative. It is abundantly apparent that the author knows her setting and her topic with the thoroughness of the professional participant as opposed to the diligent journalist. To a certain extent, there is a rather more graphic description of each of the deceased than in many mysteries that I've read with a similar format, but there is no attempt to make the subject particularly sensational, just very, very real.

Dr. Reichs' writing style is engaging and carries the reader along swiftly. The central characters are likable and human, much as those of Rita Mae Brown who's mysteries I tend to read just to "visit" old friends. Dialogue is realistic and is not gratuitous and designed to fill space but forwards the story well. Furthermore, it is well tailored to each of the individual characters, contributing to their three dimensional quality. Their mannerisms in speaking, their use of dialect all create a sense of "real people." The rhythm of the words encourages the reader to keep moving smoothly to the denouement.

My one and only complaint would be that the conclusion of the story of Sister Elisabeth Nicolet, the threads of whose history is woven through the main theme, is not quite as interesting as it might have been and leaves one feeling rather more distracted than entertained.

Certainly a mystery worth reading. If nothing else, you'll learn a lot about what forensics.

Deja Dead, i dont think, was quite the thriller everyone made it out to be. It was good, yeah, probably meriting about four stars, but it was not THAT good. It wasn't as good as debut as Boston Teran's, Minette Walters', Patricia Cornwell's. However, with this second novel, she really packs a punch.

The chill of the canadian weather really pervades the story, working its way into the writing and feeling of the story. It is brilliantly evoked, and works well with the nature of the book itself.

Being a huge Cornwell fan, i have to say that i do believe Tempe to be better company. She is less driven (some would not take this as a plus) she is more well rounded, and she is a bit more interesting. Her relationship with Ryan develops well and interestingly.

The plot is a cracker. Which is something Reichs is excellent at. All of her books from here on in have absolutely fantastic plots. Deadly Decisions has a great plot, but is still a weak book, but Fatal Voyage has an absolute stunner of a plot. Grave Secrets, her next, looks to have one as well.

While this plot is not quite as good as that of Fatal Voyage, it nearly is. It is intriguing, exciting, haunting, complex. If anything, too complex. (That is the thing Deadly Decisions suffered from.) The conclusion is great.

A cast of great characters, some great writing, a great atmopshere, great forensic detail, and a brilliant plot make this book well worth a read.

Bought myself a Christmass gift... What a great gift it was! I truly know my taste... If you loved Déjà dead, you'll love Death du jour. Same style, another great story with Tempe Brennan. These books are not to become classics of course but they are great as evening or weekend relax reading session... Dr. Reichs always grabs me with her descriptions of forensic work. You see a professionnal describing her job. She shares through Brennan her love/hate of that difficult task. I loved that story. I'm from Montreal, one of the city where she works and reading these storys put me right inside them. Wonder if I didn't see Brennan and Ryan fighting to make it through the bad weather while I was working during the ice storm... Of course beeing from Montreal, or Charlotte for that matter, you cannot but be pulled into the story in a way no other people can. But if you live outside those cities, I still recommend Death du jour. Good plot, very well witten with just enough suspense and insight to make this book another page turner. I read it in two days. That is bad. Now I'm waiting for the next one...

This is more like it.

I admit to being somewhat disappointed with Kathy Reichs' first foray into the medical thriller and couldn't really see much which differentiated her heorine, Dr. Tempe Brennan, from Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta.

Brennan's second appearance in this book is vastly better and Reichs has crafted an interesting and gripping thriller with an interesting storyline, great plot twists and sufficient technical detail to keep the reader interested. Once again, I am thrilled to see a mainstream author using a Canadian city - Montreal - as a backdrop. In this case, Dr. Brennan is faced with a number of apparently unrelated murders which eventually lead her into the paths of a strange cult - shades of Quebec's Solar Temple cult. Reichs has clearly spent a lot of time gathering details on these sorts of organisations which, when combined with her medical and anthropological knowledge, create a wonderfully detailed storyline.

Tempe Brennan is clearly becoming a character in her own right and I can only hope that Kathy Reichs continues to develop these interesting and unique storylines for her books. Admittedly, there will always be comparisons with Patricia Cornwell but this book clearly shows that Reichs is now establishing her own form and doing so quite successfully. This will never be considered great literature but nontheless, it is a highly readable and highly recommended thriller.

After her explosive entry into the thriller arena, Kathy Reichs slowed down a bit with this, her second foray into the life of forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. The plot is not as taut, the writing not as spare, and the characters less finely drawn than in her debut novel, "Deja Dead." Nevertheless, this is still a fun, fast read. If not as suspenseful as the first book, it still weaves a scary tale of a shady cult whose members, including infants, keep turning up dead.

Temperance is a fascinating character and a welcome change from her fictional counterpart, Kay Scarpetta. Unlike Scarpetta, however, Temperance (Tempe), whose duties include teaching at the university level, is fond of lecturing. In Book 1, there was a highly technical and interesting discussion of all the different cuts that can be made to human bones, and why their differences matter. In this book, there is an informative but truly nauseating discussion of maggots and blowflies and their lifecycles on human cadavers. Strong stuff; not really necessary to the plot, but hey, I'll never look at a fly in the same way again.

The problem with this book is that, at this early stage in the series at least, Reichs seems very uncomfortable with the human side of her characters. She can write about maggots devouring dead human flesh for pages at a time, but give her a love scene and she falls apart. Her stilted description of a sexy encounter between Tempe and her "partner in crime," hunky police detective Andy Ryan, had me laughing aloud--not the intended response. Equally unbelievable are Reichs' descriptions of Tempe's flighty sister Harry, and Harry's son Kit.

That having been said, I still strongly recommend this book as a good, fast-paced read, and a welcome addition to the crime genre. I'm more than willing to let Reichs get her sea legs, especially when I can also enjoy vivid descriptions of Montreal during a brutal winter, and North Carolina at its balmy best.

Anyone who has read Kathy Reichs can see her hitting her stride as an author. Her main character, Tempe Brennan, splits her time between the Laboratoire de Medicine Legale de Montreal (and my french never sounded better!) and the University of North Carolina - Charlotte. Though a forensic anthropologist, the obvious comparisons to Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta are almost inevitable. But, to my mind of late, Tempe brings much more to the table. She is not as whiney as our Kay and the secondary charcaters are much more believable and founded in reality than the stereotypes who support Dr. Kay these days.

This novel runs parallel plots with the excavation of a long dead nun who is up for beatification, an arson induced house fire, and the disappearance of a college assistant, that takes Tempe from Montreal to the Carolinas. This all leads her to the pursuit of a cult and, through the course of the novel, gives us some flicker of insight into what can get people to sign up for places like Jonestown. Like her discussions on pathology, Ms. Reichs doesn't use the vast amount of material she has acquired about cults to shock us, but, rather, uses it to move the pace along quite well.

We also see more insight into Tempe herself than we did in the first book. We gain (better) insight into her relationship with her sister - both as a sibling and as a rival. And we also get a better focus on her relationship with her daughter. Once the story moves to the Carolina's, we see, dare I say, even a more sexy Tempe. This all makes her character much more believable and maybe much more vulnerable. More like you and me and so we tend (and want) to root for her.

So, why not 5 stars? I found the exacavation of the nun fascinating and, quite frankly, was waiting for it to be tied in neatly with the cult. That never came to be. Still, this was a very good read and held my interest through out. The kind of story you read by a roaring fire with a brandy or maybe sitting under an umbrella on the beach. But, if you read it on an island off of South Carolina, you might find yourself looking over your shoulder. Kathy Reichs, she's that good.