Deja Dead - Hardcover

Reichs, Kathy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684841177 ISBN 13: 9780684841175

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd, 1997

Synopsis

Kathy Reichs blasts into Patricia Cornwell territory -- and onto the "New York Times" bestseller list -- with this critically acclaimed debut novel inspired by Reichs' own career. Dr. Temperance Brennan, the wry, impassioned director of forensic anthropology for the province of Quebec, is driven to unravel shocking acts of violence by reading the bones of the dead. In the year since Tempe left behind a shaky marriage in North Carolina, work has often preempted her weekend plans to explore Quebec. But when an unidentified female corpse is discovered meticulously dismembered and stashed in garbage bags, Tempe detects an alarming pattern within the grisly handiwork -- and her professional detachment gives way to a harrowing search for a killer in the city's winding streets. With little help from the police, Tempe calls on her expertise, honed in the isolated intensity of the autopsy suite, to investigate on her own. But her determined chase is about to place those closest to her -- her best friend and her daughter -- in mortal danger....

About this title

Review:

Reichs' stunning debut thriller draws on her experience as a forensic anthropologist in North Carolina and Montreal, but it has considerably more going for it than the mere stamp of authenticity. The devil is in the details, and it is the small betraying details--the alignment of cuts in bloody bone--that convince Temperance Brennan that a series of women, murdered in different ways, were killed and dismembered by the same hand and the same saw. Knowing what she knows is one thing, but convincing her police colleagues is quite another.

Reichs skilfully depicts police canteen culture and the way it ensures that someone who is an expert outsider, not one of the lads, is always going to have to go that extra mile to prove herself and her ideas. Brennan is a toughie, though, and not too fussy about demarcation disputes. Reichs has found a way of having her cake and eating it and giving us a detective who combines professional expertise with enthusiastic amateurism. Even more compellingly, the suspense is turned up several notches when Brennan realizes that she is hunted as well as hunter--they find the killer's lair and find her photograph among his trophies... --Roz Kaveney

Review:

Barry Fisher Crime Lab Director, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department [Reichs] combines that intimate understanding of forensic science and death investigation with that unique ability to weave a story which will keep you in a white-knuckled state of terror.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0684841177
• ISBN 13: 9780684841175
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 411