Death Du Jour (Temperance Brennan Novels) [AUDIOBOOK] [UNABRIDGED] (Audio CD)

by Kathy Reichs (Author), Bonnie Hurren (Narrator)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
"In Quebec, winters can be slow for the forensic anthropologist. The temperature rarely rises above freezing. The rivers and lakes ice over, the ground turns rock hard, and snow buries everything. Bugs disappear, and many scavengers go underground. The result: Corpses do not putrefy in the great outdoors. Floaters are not pulled from the St. Lawrence... and some of last season's dead are not found until the spring melt."

Readers of Kathy Reichs's cool and clever first forensic thriller Déjà Dead will recognize the ironic voice of Tempe (short for Temperance) Brennan, the North Carolina-born scientist who winds up working at the Laboratoire de Médicine Légale in Montreal. Here she bristles at the conservative attitudes of some of her Canadian colleagues.

Despite the cold weather, Tempe's workload quickly becomes heavy: the bones of a long-dead nun now up for sainthood have been moved and tampered with; a deadly house fire turns out to be arson; and a university teaching assistant disappears after joining a cult. Tempe must figure out where (and why) all the bodies are buried in the hard Canadian ground. Her investigations take her home to North Carolina, and to a strange colony living on an offshore island.

Unlike certain other writers who specialize in forensic pathology, Reichs doesn't revel in the horror of death or rub our noses in gore: she uses the science of death to reveal rather than to shock or startle. It definitely makes for easier reading--especially at mealtimes. --Dick Adler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Forensic anthropologist Temperance "Tempe" Brennan of the Laboratoire de M?dicine L?gale in Montreal makes a triumphant second appearance in Reichs's powerful followup to her bestselling debut, D?j? Dead. The novel opens atmospherically in a frigid church graveyard as Tempe labors to exhume the century-old remains of a nun so that the Church can posthumously declare her a saint. But the bones aren't where they're supposed to be according to the graveyard map, and there's something suspicious about them when they do turn up. Tempe's caseload multiplies as a house fire proves to be a horrific instance of arson and a university teaching assistant who's recently joined a cult goes missing. The three seemingly individual events begin to braid together, as the doings with the doomsday cult draw Tempe to North Carolina. As in D?j? Dead, ReichsAherself a forensic anthropologistArenders comprehensively and believably the cool, tense intelligence of her heroine. A North Carolina native who consults in Montreal only a few months of the year, Tempe still hasn't acclimated to the bone-chilling Northern cold, and if she's come to expect the misogynist attitudes of some of the Canadian officials, she still bristles at them. Also well presented are Tempe's refreshing compassion in the face of relentless autopsies, her ability to describe a corpse with judiciously graphic detail and her penchant for revealing the art behind the science on such matters as the preservation of a corpse's teeth. Reichs's first novel, which won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel of 1997, was compared justifiably to the Kay Scarpetta novels of Patricia Cornwell. Soon, Cornwell's novels may be compared to Reichs's. Agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh. Major ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Chivers Audio Books; Unabridged edition (April 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 075405330X
• ISBN-13: 978-0754053309
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 7.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (167 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,043,144 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 2 in The Temperance Brennan Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Move over, Kay Scarpetta, August 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Death du Jour (Temperance Brennan Novels) (Mass Market Paperback)

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.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Impressively real, June 10, 2001

By	Atheen M. Wilson "Atheen" (Mpls, MN United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Death du Jour (Hardcover)

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.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Exciting, so don't start reading it before bedtime., July 26, 2000

By	Chianne Cards "infantonboard" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death du Jour (Temperance Brennan Novels) (Mass Market Paperback)

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.)