Deja Dead

From Library Journal
A superb new writer introduces her intrepid heroine to crime fiction. Dr. Tempe Brennan, a trowel-packing forensic anthropologist from North Carolina, works in Montreal's Laboratoire de Medecine Legale examining recovered bodies to help police solve missing-persons cases and murders. It's clear to Tempe that the remains of several women killed and savagely mutilated point to a sadistic serial killer, but she can't convince the police. Determined to prevent more brutal deaths, she sleuths solo, tracking her quarry through Montreal's seedy underworld of hookers, where her anthropologist friend Gabby, doing her own scary research, is being stalked by a creep. Despite her ability to work among fetid, putrefying smells that "leap out and grab" and her "go-to-hell attitude" with seasoned cops, Tempe is as vulnerable as a soft Carolina morning. When a grinning skull is planted in her garden, her investigation turns personal and escalates to an intense and satisfying conclusion. Except for imparting an excess of lab information, Reichs, also a forensic anthropologist, drives the pace at a heady clip. A first-class writer, she dazzles readers with sensory imagery that is apt, fresh, and funny (e.g., "fingers felt cold and limp, like carrots kept too long in a cooler bin"). Recommended for all fiction collections, this read is sure to be in demand.-?Molly Gorman, San Marino, Cal.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Marilyn Stasio
Although she walks and talks like a clone of Kay Scarpetta, the testy medical examiner in Patricia Cornwell's novels, Brennan comes by her forensic expertise legitimately, as the alter ego of a first-time author who is herself an anthropologist for the province of Quebec.


From AudioFile
Kathy Reichs's real-life experience in forensic science fleshes out her riveting mystery about Tempe, an American woman working in Montreal for the police's forensic department. Tempe fights a one-woman battle to expose a link around similar brutal rapes and murders that have occurred in the city over the last few years. As she herself becomes the target, Tempe must rely on her wits and will to save her life. Amy Irving is an excellent Tempe; we hear her fatigue after hours of autopsies, her intelligence as she pieces together the mystery, her angst over her best friend's sudden strange behavior. Deja Dead is believable and exciting--a real thrill ride with Reichs and Irving at the controls. R.A.P. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Temperance Brennan may not be competition for Kay Scarpetta, Patricia Cornwell's medical examiner, in the romance department, but she's just as stubborn and almost as astute when it comes to sleuthing. While investigating a grisly discovery for the Montreal coroner's office, Tempe finds herself remembering a similar investigation she conducted on the remains of a woman who was savagely dismembered and stuffed in garbage bags. When Tempe's concerns about a serial killer are dismissed by the police, she decides to pursue the matter herself--a course of action that both puts her career on the line and so effectively upsets the murderer's plan that he sets his sights on her. Montreal, with its French culture, is an enticing setting for Reichs' first mystery, and as a forensic anthropologist who spends part of her time working for the Province of Quebec, Reich knows the city well. She also contributes a wealth of authentic medical detail as she follows Tempe on her gripping, convoluted quest to catch a psychotic killer. A high-voltage thriller that readers won't want to put down. Reichs' novel generated great interest at the Frankfurt Book Fair and prompted a big-numbers rights auction. Stephanie Zvirin


From Kirkus Reviews
Dr. Temperance Brennan, the forensic anthropologist transplanted from North Carolina to Montreal, hopes the bones found at Le Grand S‚minaire are too ancient to fall within her purview. No such luck. Not only has Isabelle Gagnon been recently and horribly killed, but Tempe's memory of another grisly discovery in a bunch of trash bags marks this death as the work of a sadistic serial killer who's far from finished. To catch this monster, Tempe and her colleagues at the Laboratoire de M‚dicine L‚gale take a long look at several sets of teeth, compare the traces left on human bone by different kinds of saws, and consider exactly what it means to find a bathroom plunger, or a statue of the Virgin Mary, inside a rotting rib cage. As a break from her exhaustive lab sessions, Tempe spars with Sgt. Luc Claudel, the homicide cop who has a problem with interfering women, and hangs out with her grad school friend Gabby Macaulay, whose study of the mating habits of prostitutes is bound to be more closely connected to Tempe's case than she realizes. Tempe is an appealing new heroine, and the forensic detail is gripping, but because Reichs--whose r‚sum‚ sounds a lot like her heroine's- -lacks the whiplash control of Patricia Cornwell at her best, the story seems overlong, overpeopled (more lifeless walk-ons than the phone book), and overwrought. (The hysterical scenes between Tempe and Gabby, who keeps babbling about the unspeakable secrets she just can't share with her old friend, are especially annoying.) But readers ravenous for ghoulish detail and hints of unfathomable evil, spruced up by the modishly effective Quebec setting, will gobble this first course greedily and expect better-balanced nutrition next time. (Book-of-the-Month Club main selection; author tour; radio satellite tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
New York Newsday Great, suspensful fun....A fascinating inside look at the workings of a coroner's office....Temperance Brennan is the real thing. That's because her creator, Kathy Reichs, is the real thing.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

It's June in Montreal, and Tempe, 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. First, though, she must stop at a newly uncovered burial site in the heart of the city. One look at the decomposed and decapitated corpse, stored neatly in plastic bags, tells her she'll spend the weekend in the crime lab. This is homicide of the worst kind. To begin to find some answers, Tempe must first identify the victim. Who is this person with reddish hair and a small bone structure? Something about the crime scene is familiar to Tempe: the stashing of the body parts, the meticulous dismemberment. One case in particular comes to mind: the murder of sixteen-year-old Chantale Trottier, who'd arrived in the morgue naked, less than a year before, and packaged in plastic garbage bags. Tempe's convinced there are parallels between the two cases, but it will take more victims to persuade her police colleagues. Knowing there is a killer on the streets who may soon find a new victim, Tempe calls upon all her forensic skills, including bone, tooth, and bitemark analysis and X-ray microfluorescence to try to prove that the cases are related and to stop the killer before he strikes again. The next victim may be closer to home - Tempe's longtime friend Gabby, her college-age daughter Katy, or Tempe herself.

SYNOPSIS

August 1997

"I'm on a first-name basis with the odor of death," remarks Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist for the province of Quebec. Tempe thought she had seen it all until she was called upon to examine a brutally butchered body on the grounds of an abandoned Catholic seminary in Montreal. This macabre scene begins her gripping and unforgettable manhunt in Déjà Dead, a riveting debut novel by real-life forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs.

Déjà Dead's suspense takes off when Tempe connects the mutilated, headless body to another case, one the police were never able to solve. The deeper she digs for clues, the more it appears as if Montreal has a serial killer on the loose, one with a penchant for carving flesh and rearranging bones. However, Tempe's attempts to warn the police are met with icy resistance, and the head of the investigation cuts her out of the loop. When another woman turns up dead, Tempe decides to investigate the murder alone, unwittingly putting her best friend, her daughter, and even herself at risk.

In her search for the "blade cowboy," Tempe Brennan proves herself a keen hunter. But so is her prey. The only question is: Who will get to the other first? With its grisly detail, adrenaline-inducing story line, and spirited heroine, Déjà Dead is sure to catapult Kathy Reichs into the top ranks of crime-fiction writers.

FROM THE CRITICS

New Orleans Times-Picayune

With fast action, a great lead character, impeccable writing, [and] a perfect setting....Deja Dead is a keeper.

New York Newsday

Great, suspensful fun....A fascinating inside look at the workings of a coroner's office....Temperance Brennan is the real thing. That's because her creator, Kathy Reichs, is the real thing.

Publishers Weekly

With this assured and intelligent debut, Reichs introduces herself as a prodigious new talent in the crime game. Someone is murdering and dismembering women in Montreal, and forensic anthropologist Temperance "Tempe" Brennan, a middle-aged North Carolina transplant, is having a tough time convincing the Canadian version of the old boy network that the grizzly slayings are the work of a single killer. Since no one believes her theories, Tempe is left pretty much on her own to track the killer, following a trail that leads through demimondes of prostitution, religion and animal research. When a spreadsheet listing past victims and including Tempe's name is discovered in the home of a suspect, even the dyspeptic Constable Claudel is forced to admit that Tempe might be on the right track. Reichs handles the tension between Tempe and the men deftly, allowing the reader to despise their unfair treatment of her while understanding that an expert in such a field can be intimidating. A master of nimble phrasing, Reichs herself entertains readers even as she educates them in some of the finer points of forensics. Tempe is as comfortable negotiating the meaner streets of Montreal as she is talking about the myriad types of saws available to those with a penchant for dismembering their fellow human beings. The final confrontation scene is as gripping as anything in recent suspense fiction, and it is impossible not to like the vulnerable, observant and competent Tempe, who refreshingly admits to never having "gotten used to" the maggots that abandon corpses on the cutting table: "the seething blanket of pale yellow... dropping from the body to the table to the floor, in a slow but steady drizzle." FYI: Reichs, like her heroine, is a forensic anthropologist in North Carolina and Canada, and a professor.

Library Journal

A superb new writer introduces her intrepid heroine to crime fiction. Dr. Tempe Brennan, a trowel-packing forensic anthropologist from North Carolina, works in Montreal's Laboratoire de Médecine Légale examining recovered bodies to help police solve missing-persons cases and murders. It's clear to Tempe that the remains of several women killed and savagely mutilated point to a sadistic serial killer, but she can't convince the police. Determined to prevent more brutal deaths, she sleuths solo, tracking her quarry through Montreal's seedy underworld of hookers, where her anthropologist friend Gabby, doing her own scary research, is being stalked by a creep. Despite her ability to work among fetid, putrefying smells that "leap out and grab" and her "go-to-hell attitude" with seasoned cops, Tempe is as vulnerable as a soft Carolina morning. When a grinning skull is planted in her garden, her investigation turns personal and escalates to an intense and satisfying conclusion. Except for imparting an excess of lab information, Reichs, also a forensic anthropologist, drives the pace at a heady clip. A first-class writer, she dazzles readers with sensory imagery that is apt, fresh, and funny (e.g., "fingers felt cold and limp, like carrots kept too long in a cooler bin"). Recommended for all fiction collections, this read is sure to be in demand. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/97.]Molly Gorman, San Marino, Cal.

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