DEATH DU JOUR by Kathy Reichs (see her website)
Scribner, 1999
Forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan is finally doing something she loves--helping determine the evidence for a prospective saint buried near Quebec. Despite the cold, she loves what she'd doing. Soon, however, far more recent death enters her world. For a time it seems that every place she turns, whether in Quebec, or home in North Carolina, she turns up another corpse--another murder. When the evidence begins to point to a link between the deaths and a strange cult that just might have caught her sister in its grip, Tempe feels helpless to do anything to prevent a new death wave that could make the current death of the day seem small.
Author Kathy Reichs is completely convincing in her descriptions of forensic anthropology. The segments of DEATH DU JOUR dealing with the recovery of the prospective Saint, including both the science and Reichs' descriptions of the bitter cold of Quebec in winter ring painfully true. She adds page-turning suspense and the risks of both emotional and physical danger to Tempe to make the novel even more compelling.
The amount of coincidence involved in the story, put me off to some extent. While a cult might well have branches in multiple cities, the odds that one forensic anthropologist would accidentally get involved in the activities of this cult in three separate areas stretches the reader's credibility. Fortunately, Reich moves DEATH DU JOUR along at a fast enough pace that you aren't given enough time to consider the improbability of some of Reich's plot elements.
See more BooksForABuck.com reviews of novels by Kathy Reichs.
Three Stars
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