Monday Mourning (Paperback)

by Kathy Reichs (Author) "AS THE TUNE PLAYED INSIDE MY HEAD, GUNFIRE EXPLODED IN the cramped underground space around me..." (more)
Key Phrases: pizza basement skeletons, leather shroud, strontium isotope analysis, Louise Parent, Anique Pomerleau, Rose Fisher (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Forensic scientist Tempe Brennan isn't happy: it's freezing in Montreal, her detective boyfriend is giving her the cold shoulder and her macho colleagues won't take her seriously. When Reichs's heroine is called in to examine three skeletons discovered in the basement of a pizza parlor at the start of the seventh installment in this popular series, her instincts tell her a crime was recently committed. Chauvinistic homicide detective Luc Claudel doesn't agree, but Tempe forges ahead and soon discovers that the victims are young women, probably teenagers killed sometime in the 1980s. Already feeling vulnerable because she's left her beloved daughter, Katy, back home in North Carolina, Tempe is further troubled by the indifference of formerly avid lover Andrew Ryan (another Montreal detective). Meanwhile, new developments lead Tempe and her reluctant colleagues to suspect a creepy former pawn store owner of serial kidnappings, torture and grisly murder. What's best about Reichs, and often unappreciated in reviews, is not the informative detail that she brings to Tempe's forensic sleuthing, though that's certainly engrossing. It's the same well-observed detail and incisive analysis applied to other aspects of the story. Tempe deconstructs Ryan's every evasive gesture and casual comment and describes an ominously darkened room, the glow from a UV light and an armada of snow plows with vivid precision. Here, as previously, readers will be as invested in Tempe's life as in her case.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
In Montreal to testify as an expert witness in a murder trial, forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan is called to the basement of a pizza parlor where three bodies have been found buried in shallow graves. Her examination reveals that the victims, young women, were recently killed, and she convinces police to investigate the deaths as murders. Puzzled when the bodies don't physically match any of the missing-person reports from past years, Temperance delves deeper and uncovers a horrifying secret. Meanwhile, boyfriend troubles and a friend's marital woes add to Temperance's problems. Fans of Patricia Cornwell will relish the forensic detail-- determining the physical characteristics of the women from their skeletons, dating the remains, and performing tests to discover where the victims grew up and then spent the last years of their lives. A fast-paced and suspenseful mystery in a deservedly popular series. Sue O'Brien
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 302 pages
• Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd (November 4, 2004)
• ISBN-10: 0434013234
• ISBN-13: 978-0434013234
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (75 customer reviews)

• This is item 7 in The Temperance Brennan Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Reichs heads back to the formula that works, July 9, 2004

By	B. Walker (Wisconsin, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Monday Mourning: A Novel (Hardcover)

There are some authors whose books you buy just because you've read the rest in the series and you can't help but keep buying them, as bad as they sometimes get (Cornwell's Scarpetta books are a perfect example). Reichs' Tempe Brennan series is like that for me and I'm relieved that while she didn't knock my socks off with this one, she didn't disappoint like the last couple of books either.

Tempe is back in Quebec for this installment, thank heavens. The interplay between Tempe and her Canadian colleagues always seems to sizzle, while the American connections drag and bore. The usual players are all back in action, including the oddball Chardonneau, cranky Claudel and of course, on again/off again love interest Andrew Ryan.

The story is tightly packed into what seems like not as many pages as usual. The forensic details are exquisitely presented, apart from three yawn-inducing lectures about carbon dating, among other things. While there are a whole lot of implausible plot lines I can swallow in the genre, I have a hard time believing Tempe's boss LaManche has never heard of carbon dating. The basic plot line is interesting, the crime being solved is, sadly, easy to believe happened. The solving of the crime itself moves along at a relatively believable pace, although with others, I think the decision to have Tempe and her girlfriend investigate the crime themselves a la CSI was a poor decision on Reichs' part.

Where this book fails is exactly where the past few have failed. The "romance" between Ryan and Tempe is not particularly interesting, no matter how blue Reichs wants to make his eyes. He's inattentive and secretive, she's snotty and throws tantrums. I don't know what on earth these two see in each other, unless it's all physical (Reichs makes sure we know Tempe is a gorgeous size 4 and Ryan is a tall hunk). The reason for Ryan's distraction is offered up on a silver platter right around page 120 or so, although we the readers aren't supposed to get it until the jarring end of the book.

I can easily recommend Monday Mourning to any Reichs fan and to fans who've been turned off of the Scarpetta books because she lost focus on the forensics. Reichs is well-credentialed in forensic anthropology and it shows without reading like a textbook (apart from those three preachy parts). The Ryan romance angle could be dropped and I think both characters would be better for it. If Reichs really has to have some kind of sexual tension between her leading lady and someone, I would rather see her explore the odd hate/hate relationship Tempe has with the prickly but sexy Claudel. There was a glimmer of something hinted at in the final pages of this book, one that had more heat than all the scenes between Tempe and Ryan combined.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Murder In A Thin Crust, October 14, 2004

By	Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Monday Mourning: A Novel (Hardcover)

Bare Bones, Kathy Reichs previous novel shows some signs of becoming too personally involved with Temperance Brennan's personal life to the exclusion of the real story. And the start of Monday Mourning did little to dispel this. Tempe is back in Montreal for a stint as their forensic anthropologist seemingly completely wired. Her relationship with Detective Andrew Ryan is going through a rough spot (which is mostly in her head), and the discovery of three skeletons in the cellar of a pizza parlor forces her to work with one of her least favorite detectives, Luc Claudel. And her best friend shows up on the verge of divorce. Nothing is going right.

Claudel and Tempe square off over the age of the remains. He wants to believe that they are ancient history, but Tempe has a hunch that they are more recent. When an unknown caller reveals that something had been going on in the building Tempe becomes fixated on finding the truth. Be prepared for a wave of archeological science as Tempe not only proves the age of the bones, but manages to pinpoint where they had lived. And close inspection of the remains reveals other horrific possibilities.

As Tempe's personal crises build so does the tention of the case. Something horrible lies behind the slim evidence, and it has never gone to sleep. Now threatened, a noose begins to tighten about Tempe's own neck. What awaits is subtle and merciless, and Tempe will find herself faced with true darkness even as she tries to resolve a 20 year old wrong. A whirl of tense action spins its way to a gripping ending.

For my tastes, there is a bit too much Tempe in this story. For a mature woman with a great deal of responsibility, she manages to turn herself into a nervous wreck over Andrew Ryan. There are early moments in the book that made me thing that Reichs was determined to become just another Pat Cornwell clone, and I despaired that the forensic detective genre had gone to romances every one.

But Reichs somehow pulls back from the precipice and gets down to the business of writing a strong and compelling thriller. I found the core mystery one that offered a sufficient number of subtle clues and red herrings to keep the reader guessing, while the plot marches on at great tempo. Reichs will remain on my 'buy in hardcover' list.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Bring Back the Old Tempe, September 2, 2004

By	Jody "[e-mail]" (Northwest Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Monday Mourning: A Novel (Hardcover)

Although the Tempe Brennan of Monday Mourning is vaguely reminiscent of the Tempe of Deja Dead, I'm not very fond of this new one. There seems to be a trend in current best-sellers toward stream of consciousness and rather bizarre figures of speech. While Reichs writes an excellent plot, the odd conversational style and emotional unevenness of the characters in this book are distracting. For example, if my obviously distraught best friend visited me in a foreign country and disappeared, I believe I'd call out the Mounties rather than rather casually mentioning that she'd been gone for four days and making sporadic phone calls to see if she'd arrived anywhere expected. If a "love interest" started acting peculiar, I believe most modern women would find a way to find out what was going on, rather than tip-toeing around the situation, which Tempe does for most of the novel. This behavior, from a successful,well-educated professional woman, is simply not credible. What I always enjoyed about the old Tempe was the universality of her emotions and behavior in a very non-mainstream profession. This was not evident in Monday Mourning, and I missed it.