Rating: 
Summary: Murder in Montreal
Review: Dr. Tempe Brennan, a forensic anthropologist, makes her debut in Deja Dead, possibly an alter-ego of author Kathy Reich (or Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta?). With a touch of whimsy, author Reich, offers the reader a recovering alcoholic named Temperance, with a failed marriage and grown daughter, a southerner finding her way about in a very different environment. The introduction to the French-Canadian city of Montreal comes complete with a map (I adore a book with a MAP!) and a delicious description of a Canadian summer: "When summer arrives in Montreal it flounces in like a rumba dancer .... It is a ribald celebration that begins in June and continues until September. The season is embraced and relished. Life moves into the open. After the long, bleak winter, outdoor cafes reappear, cyclists and Rollerbladers, compete for the bike paths, festivals follow quickly one after another on the streets, and crowds turn the sidewalks into swirling patterns." This novel is low on the testosterone fueled "blood and guts" of typical thrillers going straight for the bones of the issue, sometimes in excruciating and disgusting detail. Could there be a serial killer in Montreal? And exactly what has Tempe's college chum Gabby gotten herself into this time? In wonderfully set scenes, a Testy Tempe begins puzzling out the bones like a jigsaw puzzle ... which causes more than a little conflict with the chauvinistic and impeccably tailored homicide investigator Luc Claudel. And is there something behind the flashing blue eyes of Detective Ryan? Alternately, clever, tedious, insightful, a thought provoking - this was an enjoyable read.-Mamalinda
Rating: 
Summary: Tempe to the rescue...
Review: I remember seeing Kathy Reichs' "Déjà Dead" a number of years ago, but after reading this fabulous book, I'm angry at myself for not picking it up sooner! "Déjà Dead" is a bit like "CSI" meets Montréal: a match made in heaven if ever I've seen one. Reichs' voice at once rings true: like her protagonist Temperance Brennan, Reichs herself is a forensic anthropologist for North Carolina and the province of Québec. "Déjà Dead" blends the fascinating world of forensic pathology with the vibrant scene that is Montréal, the largest French-speaking city outside of Paris. Reichs throws in colourful joual, perfectly captures a number of different Québec accents, and brings a fantastic vision of Montréal to the page as well as intimately involving the reader on a quest to identify the five bodies left behind by a brutal serial killer. Reichs' in-depth details are NOT for the overly squeamish: "The limbs retained large portions of putrefied soft tissue. Maggots were dropping from the body to the table, from the table to the floor, in a slow but steady drizzle." Consider yourself warned. This is an amazingly satisfying debut that left me craving more, mainly because the book brought back so many memories of La Belle Province, Québec, that I've called home. The descriptions of the various processes that Tempe and her colleagues use to identify the mutilated remains and track the killer never seemed forced or out of place. At times the book crawls to a standstill as Reichs becomes a little too enthusiastic about certain forensic procedures that could have been pared down (like a chapter dealing with the intricacies of bone saws in technical jargon that seemed to go on forever), and clichéd lingo, with loads of great, sometimes cheesy metaphors, but Tempe Brennan and her deliciously eccentric friends and colleagues seem wonderfully three-dimensional, always human with their own flaws and fears. The book is peppered with French and Québécois phrases, explanations and neighbourhood desriptions, and at times it felt a bit like a travelogue as Tempe would describe her favourite area restaurants and various haunts. If you enjoy mysteries, forensics, "CSI," or Montréal, this book is for you. Be warned that there is a good deal of death, autopsies, mutilation, and violence towards animals and women. If that bothers you then you'll want to look elsewhere, but for the rest of us Tempe and Kathy bring us a fascinating world of postmortems, the vibrant metropolis that is Montréal, and the hunt for a vicious killer that takes on a personal side for Tempe as her daughter, best friend, and Tempe herself are all in danger. I can't wait to continue Tempe's adventures with other books in the series! Merci à Kathy Reichs and keep up the good work!
Rating:
Summary: Crime Fiction at its Absolute Best
Review: Dr. Temperance Brennan, called Tempe, is a forensic anthropologist on the wagon who has moved from North Carolina to Montreal and now works in the Laboratoire de Medecine Legale, examining recovered bodies to help police solve missing-persons cases and murders. When the bones of a dead woman are unearthed in the grounds of an abandoned monastery, the investigation is handed to Tempe. She quickly discovers similarities in other recent murder cases and begins to suspect that a serial killer may be responsible. As the body count mounts and her theories are largely ignored by the police, Tempe decides to turn detective in order to bring the murderer to justice. This is an expertly crafted, immaculately researched novel that had me up till dawn, though I must admit, sometimes Tempe can be a litte annoying, but that's what makes for excellent fiction. When you can get irritated with a character, you know you're seeing her as a real person. DEJA DEAD is crime fiction at it's absolute best.
Rating:
Summary: Tempe to the rescue...
Review: I remember seeing Kathy Reichs' "Déjà Dead" a number of years ago, but after reading this fabulous book, I'm angry at myself for not picking it up sooner! "Déjà Dead" is a bit like "CSI" meets Montréal: a match made in heaven if ever I've seen one. Reichs' voice at once rings true: like her protagonist Temperance Brennan, Reichs herself is a forensic anthropologist for North Carolina and the province of Québec. "Déjà Dead" blends the fascinating world of forensic pathology with the vibrant scene that is Montréal, the largest French-speaking city outside of Paris. Reichs throws in colourful joual, perfectly captures a number of different Québec accents, and brings a fantastic vision of Montréal to the page as well as intimately involving the reader on a quest to identify the five bodies left behind by a brutal serial killer. Reichs' in-depth details are NOT for the overly squeamish: "The limbs retained large portions of putrefied soft tissue. Maggots were dropping from the body to the table, from the table to the floor, in a slow but steady drizzle." Consider yourself warned. This is an amazingly satisfying debut that left me craving more, mainly because the book brought back so many memories of La Belle Province, Québec, that I've called home. The descriptions of the various processes that Tempe and her colleagues use to identify the mutilated remains and track the killer never seemed forced or out of place. At times the book crawls to a standstill as Reichs becomes a little too enthusiastic about certain forensic procedures that could have been pared down (like a chapter dealing with the intricacies of bone saws in technical jargon that seemed to go on forever), and clichéd lingo, with loads of great, sometimes cheesy metaphors, but Tempe Brennan and her deliciously eccentric friends and colleagues seem wonderfully three-dimensional, always human with their own flaws and fears. The book is peppered with French and Québécois phrases, explanations and neighbourhood desriptions, and at times it felt a bit like a travelogue as Tempe would describe her favourite area restaurants and various haunts. If you enjoy mysteries, forensics, "CSI," or Montréal, this book is for you. Be warned that there is a good deal of death, autopsies, mutilation, and violence towards animals and women. If that bothers you then you'll want to look elsewhere, but for the rest of us Tempe and Kathy bring us a fascinating world of postmortems, the vibrant metropolis that is Montréal, and the hunt for a vicious killer that takes on a personal side for Tempe as her daughter, best friend, and Tempe herself are all in danger. I can't wait to continue Tempe's adventures with other books in the series! Merci à Kathy Reichs and keep up the good work!
Rating:
Summary: Apples and oranges.
Review: I read the blurb on the back, and thought I'd be reading a Patricia Cornwell / Scarpetta copycat. I read the book, and I knew that to compare Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta with Kathy Reichs' Tempe Brennan is like comparing apples with oranges. Both authors use the first person style of writing, both authors' characters are female, both authors' female characters have an awful lot to do with the slicing and dicing of dead folk. There the resemblance ends. Tempe, thank goodness, doesn't do things "nicely", as Scarpetta constantly tells us she does. Enough on the needless comparison. Deja Dead is an extraordinarily good read. Tempe's a recovering alcoholic (her full name, Temperance, is superb.) She's a hugely intelligent woman who is not afraid to let her feelings show. Like us, she has weaknesses, foibles, and the occasional pimple on her backside. The story she tells is gripping, suspenseful, and leads the reader into a few disturbing back-alleyways of the mind. Tempe (just how do you pronounce the abbreviation of her name?) is convincing, and will, I am sure, become a favourite on my bookshelves - just as Scarpetta is. Buy this book expecting to have your partner try to swipe it off you before you've finished it. Expect be well entertained, and to have a few chills runing up and down your spine. Don't buy it expecting another Scarpetta. Won't happen. Chalk and cheese. Apples and oranges. They're equals, but one is more equal than the other.
Rating: 
Summary: What a lot of rubbish
Review: This is like a _very_ trashy cheap Hollywood film, and she probably wrote it hoping it would become one. I kept wondering that a highly qualified person could waste her time producing such garbage, until I realised that a "forensic anthropologist" is nothing like a doctor or a coroner although she sure would have liked to become one. Basically it is a succession of whoppers defying the best-developed suspension of disbelief. Do _not_, under any circumstances buy into any positive review of this book, because it really is cheap junk. It goes like this: a lady forensic anthropologist who goes all alone to find & investigate an obvious crime scene with a fresh corpse. Then she discovers that her true vocation was actually to become a detective and gets on to do the cops' job. Thus she falls out with the cop who _is_ in charge of the investigation because he is not, in her opinion, thorough or professional enough. It all ends up with her going along with the cops in the police car to arrest the suspect (the police don't mind her going with them right into the suspect's flat, it' allright, they say). Unfortunately he manages to run away from a small flat crowded with policemen and the forensic anthropologist. The murderer outruns all the policemen but ONLY HER manages to spot him as he runs, and she goes for the chase. Oh, and at another point she decides to go on a solo amateur-police trip to some out-of-town lonely plot AT NIGHT (so she needs to use a torch which, of course, runs out of batteries) because she is too impatient to wait for daylight even though it is June in Montreal. And guess who she meets there -YES- THE MURDERER!! Who you would expect would rape and kill her like all the others but this time he chooses just to knock her out and run away, only coming back to plant a skull on top of a stick in her garden. It is all like this. In a word, pathetic. The language is full of extravagant comparisons which only distract from the main thrill. The narration in 1st person I find somehow unsuitable, it makes the story sound too girly (which it would be anyway) and very self-centred. One last thing: Ms Reichs is obviously fascinated by the richness and complexity of life in a bilingual community like Quebec and therefore goes out of the way to supply illustrations whenever possible but, to the many millions of people who have grown up and live every day in bilingual environments, that is dead-boring stuff. That having been said, the story sometimes manages to be quite absorbing, as all thrillers are set to do, and if you are on holiday and it is the only book in the library written in English it can be very entertaining.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining, engrossing read
Review: I picked up this novel after finishing Patricia Cornwell's incredibly disappointing "Blow Fly." I was impressed with many aspects of the novel; in particular, the fact that Reichs provides lots of forensic detail. The plot sailed right along as events escalated. I gave this book only three stars for a couple of reasons. Tempe winds up investigating the murders on her own after receiving little support from the cops, even after providing them with a plethora of evidence. That aspect of the plot was unrealistic. I also thought that Tempe's battles with alcohol and male chauvinism rang false, almost as if Reichs felt that throwing in some "struggles" would develop the main character. And there were a few too many "necessary coincidences" for my taste. But all in all, I found "Deja Dead" to be an entertaining, quick read, and I'll continue reading the rest of the books in the series, hoping that plot development becomes more skillful.
Rating:
Summary: Speaker for the Dead
Review: Tempe Brennan is a forensic pathologist.When she gets to make an autopsy of a young woman she suspects this to be a work of a serial killer. The problem - no one believes her, and the cops want her to stay out of their business. But she can't just drop it and starts looking for answers. Looking for justice for the woman, who was mercilessly killed. This novel is surprisingly good, especially for a first-time writer. Being a pathologist herself, Reichs manages to give us not the clinical, but the creepy description of the minuta of the job.
The characters are realistic and interesting, and the occasional humor is well-placed. The plot of the novel is tight and it's a character-driven story, well, for most part. The ending is also solid, apart for a bit too much coincidents, but they don't spoil it too much. Compaired to Cornwell, I like Reichs WAY better. This novel was more involving than "Postmortem" that started Kay Sarpentera series. Also, the book managed to make me feel compassion and sorrow towards victims of the killing, while in most procedure novels there are no victims - just bodies.
Rating:
Summary: A Character Driven Story that Sucks You in
Review: Kathy Reichs gives us a stunning new heroine to fall in love with in her first novel. Tempe Brennan is a forensic pathologist from the States who is working in Montreal. She's a flawed character (ex-alcoholic, divorced) and that just seems to make her more real. She's never quite gotten used to cutting up the dead, she's still a little squeamish, she's very believable, maybe it's because Reichs herself does the same kind of work, maybe that's why we cringe when she describes in the first person Tempe's reactions when she's on the job. This is a character driven story (the best kind) that sucks you right in. I was as frustrated as Tempe when the good old boy, French Canadian cops wouldn't believe her about the serial killer business. I felt Tempe's fear when she was afraid, though I must admit she was a little reckless at times. and I sympathized with her when others doubted her. I loved this five star novel and am going on to read the rest of the series. Review submitted by Captain Katie Osborne
Rating:
Summary: Murder, Canadian Style
Review: Temperance (Tempe) Brennan is an American forensic anthropologist from North Carolina, working in Montreal. She's divorced, a recovering alcoholic and she has a nineteen year old daughter who lives with her father. She's also hot on the trail of a serial killer. When Tempe autopsies the remains of a female murder victim, she sees similarities between her current case and one that she'd seen before. She thinks a serial killer may be at work. However, the male cops don't believe her and she goes after the killer herself, putting her best friend and daughter in danger. Not the most original of plots, but Reichs is a wonderful writer who gives us Stephen King like descriptions in a combination Dean Koontz, Jack Priest horror novel crossed with a Patricia Cornwell thriller and a little Iris Johansen pace thrown into the pot. I have to give this book five stars. It's an excellent first novel, I loved every bit of it. Reviewed by Vesta Irene
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