Rating: 
Summary: Tempe is terrific
Review: Kathy Reichs has created a wonderful character in Temperance Brennan, known by her friends as Tempe, a forensic anthropolgist who is brilliant, tough, and compassionate. In "Fatal Voyage," she joins a team investigating the tragic crash of an airplane in the mountains of North Carolina. Joining the team is Andy Ryan, a Montreal detective for whom Tempe has had feelings in the past. He has a vested interest in the investigation, since his former partner, Jean Bertrand, may have died in the crash while escorting a prisoner. The investigators try to figure out what brought the plane down. Was it sabotage, an assassination, an insurance scam, a mechanical failure or something else? Complicating Tempe's life further is her discovery of a decomposed foot near the crash site. When Tempe looks into her discovery, she suspects that it has nothing to do with the crash; she believes that it is a separate mystery that needs investigating. Suddenly, Tempe is unfairly accused of tampering with evidence and of illegally removing remains from the crash site. She is ordered off the investigation. It appears that powerful people want to discredit Tempe professionally. Later, when a mysterious man tries to run Tempe down with his car, she begins to realize that her life may be in danger, as well. In "Fatal Voyage," Reichs has created a large and colorful cast of characters, such as Ruby McCready, the bible toting owner of a bed and breakfast where Tempe stays, and Lucy Crowe, the local sheriff who is every bit as tough and tenacious as Tempe. The dialogue sparkles and the narrative moves quickly, although you will need a scorecard to follow the many twists and turns in the plot. The ending is a little weak--too melodramatic and unrealistic, considering the excellence of the writing up to that point. Why does Tempe spend her life poring over the remains of dead people? In this poignant passage, Tempe explains why she does such "unpleasant" work: "It is for these victims and the mourners that I tease posthumous tales from bones. The dead will remain dead, whatever my efforts, but there have to be answers and accountability. We cannot live in a world that accepts the destruction of life with no explanations and no consequences." That is good writing and Tempe is a terrific character.
Rating: 
Summary: Boyd
Review: I am so glad Boyd was okay! I just knew Kathy would weave Boyd's survival in at the end. Obviously an animal lover!
Rating:
Summary: Good book, well written except for...
Review: ...too many cliffhangers! The only flaw with this book (beside the predictable ending which was unclimatic) was the enourmous amount of cliffhangers. At the end of _EVERY_ chapter Reichs had a cliffhanger to draw you into the next chapter. Some of them were needed and actually flowed well with the story. Others, however, just came off as annoying and made me not wanna finish the book.
Luckily for Reichs, she is an extremely talented writer and I was able to ignore such annoyances thanks to her suberb writing ability. I am going to check out some of Reichs' other works, but I dunno... She better watch the cliffhangers.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: This the fourth in the series, and it is fantastic!! Ms. Reich finally got it back together like she had in the first book! She combines her science with the horror of a place crash, and creates a haunting portrayal of tragedy. Very unlike Patricia Cornwell, who would have used this story line to create a festival of gore, Ms. Reich always uses her science to deny the idea she may be enjoying the horror.
This is a rousing read, with action, mystery and even touches of humor (the dog and the squirrels). Highly recommended!!!
Rating:
Summary: Boyd
Review: I am so glad Boyd was okay! I just knew Kathy would weave Boyd's survival in at the end. Obviously an animal lover!
Rating:
Summary: A dose of science, and a fun mystery, too!
Review: I read this book as part of a forensic antropology class I am taking, and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by it. After starting another book on my reading list, THE BODY FARM by Patricia Cornwell, I quit Cornwell's book because I hated the soap-opera style and so-called scientific evidence in the story, which was so sad and inaccurate and bothersome that even I, a cinema student with just VERY minimal personal-interest background in forensic anthropology, could see huge gaping holes from square one. Fearing the same for Reichs's book, but needing to complete my assignment just the same, I started reading FATAL VOYAGE, and was pleasantly surprised. I am not a huge fan of the mystery genre, preferring nonfiction reads, but I did find that this book had a healthy dose of science along with its generally intriguing plotline, and it did hold my interest. I do have a few complaints about conveniently placed evidence (an untrainted dog happens to sniff out a key cadaver, the mysterious foot that started the whole thing is just lying there), and too contrived plot lines, but I was pretty happy with the scientific methodology presented in this story. Granted, I don't know a whole lot, but I didn't see any glaring errors. Anyway, if you like mystery, intrigue, and, of course, forensic anthropology, you will probably like this book. It's not on my all-time favorites list or anything, but at least I can say it is more of a nail-biting thriller, and less of a hair-pulling frustration, than is Cornwell's BODY FARM, and, dispite a few brow-raising coincidences, I obviously liked the book a bit, as I am here on Amazon buying a copy after checking out my initial read from the library.
Rating:
Summary: A gripping tale mixing forensics and warm characters
Review: This was the first Kathy Reichs novel I read - and now I want to read all of her Temperence Brennan books! Kathy Reichs has created a wonderful character in Tempe; she's extremely realistic - in fact, we wonder where she ends and where Kathy begins! Fatal Voyage starts out with Tempe exploring a wooded area, finding all sorts of body parts in weird positions. This book isn't for the squeamish! This opening is extremely entriguing as we begin to find out what the focus of the story will be. Tempe finds herself getting drawn into the events in an extremely personal way - she has to battle emnity from once trusted colleagues while still trying to tiptoe around her relationship problems. Along the way we get a heavy dose of forensic science. I'm a big fan of this but I think you would enjoy this novel even if you don't. One minor quib I have is that the exposition of the science tends to come in dialogue with one player playing the domain expert and the other playing the...(most of the time). This gets a bit waring after a while - straightforward explanations would have been preferable. Anyway, it's a minor distraction as Tempe makes her way, trying to identify where a series of mysterious deaths come from. Are they related to a mysterious preacher? Are they anything to do with key elected officials? Why are once trusted friends suddenly no longer on her side? If you haven't read a Kathy Reichs book before, read this one. If you have read one and liked it, you'll love this!
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