Déjà Dead by Kathy Reichs

Title: Déjà Dead
Author: Kathy Reichs
# pages: 532
Date published: 1997
Genre: thriller
Challenge(s): Winter Reading Challenge, 2008 TBR challenge, Chunkster Challenge

Setting: Quebec, Canada

First Sentence:

“I wasn’t thinking about the man who’d blown himself up.”

Cover Blurb: "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.

Random Thoughts: The television show Bones is based on the Temperance Brennan novels by Reichs. I’ve seen the TV show a couple of times and I realized at the beginning of this year that I had Déjà Dead, the first Temperance Brennan novel, on my bookshelf. While a little slow in places, this book did keep me guessing until the end and I stayed up way too late last night to finish it. I’ll read other books in this series.

Rating: 4