Deja Dead (Temperance Brennan Series #1)
Kathy Reichs, 1997
Simon & Schuster
560 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780671011369
Summary
Rarely has a debut crime novel inspired such widespread excitement. A born storyteller, Dr. Kathy Reichs walks in the steps of her heroine, Dr. Temperance Brennan. She spends her days in the autopsy suite, the courtroom, the crime lab, with cops, and at exhumation sites. Often her long days turn into harrowing nights.
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 the reddish hair and a small bone structure? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1950
• Where—Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.S, American University; M.A., Ph.D., North-
western University
• Awards—Arthur Ellis Award, Best Novel (1997)
• Currently—lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Montreal,
Quebec, Canada
Kathy Reichs burst onto the fiction scene in the late 1990s with her first novel, Deja Dead, a thriller rooted in an expert knowledge of science and medicine and powered by a strong female protagonist, Temperance Brennan. Since then, Reichs has been a regular feature on bestseller lists and is often mentioned in the same breath as the chief of the autopsy whodunit, Patricia Cornwell. (From the publisher.)
More
Both a forensics expert who has seen—firsthand— the aftermath of murderers and a novelist whose heroine tracks villains like the "Blade Cowboy," Kathy Reichs has some ideas about what the face of evil looks like: ordinary. "I see the perpetrator across the courtroom when I'm testifying. Generally, I'm underwhelmed," she said in a 2000 interview published on her web site." I'm always shocked by how totally normal they look. They look like my Uncle Frank, usually."
Reichs mulled over those experiences for about seven years before deciding to apply her ideas to fiction. Out came Déjà Dead in 1997, introducing mystery fans to a new but, more likely than not, recognizable heroine: forensics expert Temperance Brennan, a fortyish, recovering alcoholic on the run from a wobbling marriage. Brennan—a sort of mix between Nancy Drew and Quincy—is also something of a hothead, prone to marching off on her own when she runs afoul of a sexist male cop. This is the kind of woman who would sit down to brunch with Vic Warshawski, Kay Scarpetta, or Jane Tennison, if any of them did brunch.
As a forensic anthropologist for the state of North Carolina, as well as the province of Québec, Reichs draws heavily from her own experiences standing over the autopsy table. Her novels—Death du Jour, Deadly Decisions, Grave Secrets and the like—are packed with the kind of well informed clinical details that make critics take notice. "The doctor clearly knows a hawk from a handsaw," wrote the New York Times about one of her books.
She also built some parallels to her own biography when creating Tempe Brennan. Both women are forensic anthropologists with the unlikely dual addresses of North Carolina and Canada. But Reichs rolls her eyes when asked about the comparisons. "Personally, she's completely her own person," Reichs told USA Today in 1997. "She gets physically involved. She takes risks I've never been tempted to take."
Reichs was editing forensics textbooks when she began toying with writing a novel. The initial result, she said, was a dud: slow, boring, and in the third person. But it picked up steam when she came up with the Brennan character. Inspired by friend and medical examiner Bill Maples, author of Dead Men Do Tell Tales, she sat down to write, meticulously drafting an outline of her story and getting up early to write before teaching classes at the University of North Carolina. It took her two years.
The effort paid off when her manuscript made the rounds of the Frankfurt Book Fair. A heated auction won Reichs a million-dollar, two-book deal.
Critics and readers alike loved Tempe. Wrote the Library Journal, "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." And People magazine said, "Reichs not only serves up a delicious plot, she also brings a new recipe to hard-boiled cop talk."
Over chicken salad lunches with newspaper reporters, Reichs will casually talk about dismembered bodies, maggots, and concerns for her children's security in light of some of the unsavory characters she'd testified against. But then she'll confess her true idea of a waking nightmare. "[My] idea of horror would be to sit in a little gray office all day and add up columns of numbers," she told USA Today. "I say to people, 'How do you do that?"'
Extras
• When she was a child, Reichs loved both the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries, as well as books about such far-flung places as Easter Island.
• One of the reasons she is Quebec's forensics anthropologist is because she is one of the few in the profession who is fluent in French.
• Among her favorite books are the science fiction series the Hitchhiker's Guide by Douglas Adams. "It's one of the few things I re-read because it's just nothing to do with anything I do," she has said.
• She avoided college literature courses to concentrate on science.
• In 2005, Fox TV launched Bones, a forensics/police procedural inspired by Reichs's life and writing. In a neat twist, the main character, Temperance Brennan, is a forensic anthropologist who, as a sideline, writes thrillers about a fictional anthropologist named Kathy Reichs!
• Kathy's daughter, Kerry Reichs, made her literary debut in 2008 with the romantic comedy The Best Day of Someone Else's Life. ("More" and "Extras" from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
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.
New York Newsday
With fast action, a great lead character, impeccable writing, [and] a perfect setting.... Deja Dead is a keeper.
New Orleans Times-Picayune
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.
Publishers Weekly
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").
Library Journal
Dr. Temperance Brennan, the forensic anthropologist transplanted from North Carolina to Montreal, hopes the bones found at Le Grand Séminaire 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 Medicine Legale 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 resume sounds a lot like her heroine's—lacks the whiplash control of Patricia Cornwell at her best, the story seems overlong, over peopled (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.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Deja Death:
1. Talk about Temperance Brennan. What kind of character is she? Which of her personality traits do you admire...or dislike? Does Reichs do a good job of fleshing (pun?) her out?
2. How has Tempe's struggle with alcohol affected her life and career? How does she cope with her addiction? What are the demons she has to face? Has Reichs painted a realistic picture of a recovering alcoholic? Does this dark side of Tempe add to...or detract from...the plot?
3. What is a forensic anthropologist? In what ways is it different from a forensic pathologist?
4. What convinces Tempe that the five murdered women are connected? Why don't her colleagues buy her theory? Consider the differences between intuitive vs. empirical approaches to solving crimes?
5. Does Claudel have a legitimate reason to dislike Tempe? Is it fair of Tempe to overstep the boundaries of her job (putting herself—and her daughter—in jeopardy in doing so)? Or is she right in following up her hunches when the detectives dismiss her theories?
6. How does Reich depict the difficulties Tempe faces as a female in two professions ( homicide work and forensics medicine) typically dominated by men?
7. Do the lengthy technical descriptions of Tempe's work enhance the novel...or do you find them distracting, off-putting, or overly detailed? (Opinions only...no one point of view is right.)
8. What about the secondary characters: Gabby; Detective Ryan; Tempe's daughter Katy? Talk about each one in turn ... and the role each plays in the story?
9. Were you thrown off track by the red-herring Reichs put in your way—the connection between Gabby's work on prostitution and the Tempe's search for the serial killer?
10. Does this mystery thriller deliver in terms of suspense and surprise? Or is it the storyline and the ending predictable?
11. Kathy Reich has been compared to Patricia Cornwell and her heroine, Dr. Kay Scarpetta. If you've read Cornwell's books, how do the two writers (and their heroines) compare? Do you plan on reading other installments in Reich's series?
12. Have you watched any of the TV episodes of Bones, which are based on Reich's books? How does the series stack up to the book (or books)?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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