Deja Dead: A Novel (Temperance Brennan Book 1) Reissue Edition, Kindle Edition

I discovered Kathy Reichs' Temperance Brennan books when a young lady I was chatting with told me she wished to become a forensic anthropologist. That seemed oddly specific, and my curiosity was aroused. It took only a little investigation to discover Tempe Brennan. I have not read the entire series, but I have read at least through #16 Bones of the Lost.The great strength of the Tempe Brennan books is their authenticity. Tempe Brennan is a forensic anthropologist who lives and works in North Carolina and Montreal. It is obviously no coincidence that Kathy Reichs is a forensic anthropologist who divides her time between Charlotte, NC, and Montreal. She is also on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. So, she knows this stuff cold.It shows. The Tempe Brennan novels are very technical -- so technical that I'm surprised anyone but me reads them. If you want a detailed description of the succession of insects that consume a corpse dumped in a swamp, Reichs can indulge you. (You get that not in Déjà Dead, but one of the later novels.) Repeatedly and with startling detail and variety, Reichs tells you about the most grisly details of decomposing corpses. As a retired biologist, I'm there for it. I'm only surprised anyone else is.The authenticity extends to investigative work. In her real life Reichs works with police and medical officers to investigate murders. She's also a professor at the University of North Carolina. When Reichs talks about University politics and investigating a murder, she knows what she's talking about, and it shows.

Having read other Bones books over the years by Kathy Reichs I was surprised to know I’d never read the first in the series that also launched the TV show Bones. Great start to a terrific series.

Very good! This author really kept me turning those pages. She tells an amazing story.we has a fire in our house last week, and the very few moments I had to myself, between the fire restoration company and the insurance adjuster, and a very sick husband, it took more time than my usual to read a book, but this one was so interesting and well written, that I finished it in record time. On to her next…

After five years of being on the air, I recently started watching the television series BONES, starring Emily Deschanel as Dr. Temperance Brennan and David Boreanaz as Special Agent Seeley Booth. I like it. I like it so much that I decided to check out the books the series is supposedly based one. First in the series of books written by Kathy Reichs is Déjà Dead. The fact that the main character of the books is named Temperance Brennan is about the only similarity the book has to the series.Brennan is a forensic anthropologist who works in affiliation with the Canadian Police Department. She is usually called in when older bones are discovered and they need to determine their age or cause of death. Her current case involves something more recent, a young woman who was murdered and dismembered. Something is triggered in her mind as she seems to recollect another murder victim who died under similar circumstances. When she brings up the similarities to the police, they refuse to even consider it, so Brennan, who has no police training, takes it upon herself to find the killer of, as it turns out, five women. Can she do it, or will she just bungle things and end up having to be rescued by the people who should be investigating?Reading Déjà Dead, I was quickly reminded why I stay away from certain types of fiction. When Reichs started going into the details of how certain lab procedures were done, while interesting, the story for me came to a grinding halt. It struggled to find a balance between the scientific aspect and the police procedural, and the transitions were not fluid.Another stumbling block was the language. Reichs seemed to feel it necessary to give us the original French of some dialogue, immediately followed by the English translation. The infrequency with which this occurred made it seem like a gimmick to up the word count slightly and I don't feel it was necessary. It was another screeching halt moment, where everything is moving along smoothly, and then there's a line of French, followed by the English translation: it felt like I was backtracking. If Reichs didn't feel comfortable trusting the reader to be able to figure out what was being said, then it shouldn't have been there, especially when the rest of the dialogue continues in English.I also couldn't shake the feeling while I was reading that I was reading a young adult novel. We are supposed to be dealing with a well-educated professional woman, but she behaves more like Nancy Drew when she takes off to investigate without thinking things through. She repeatedly places herself in perilous situations because of her own carelessness, and only after she's knee-deep in it does she stop and think that maybe she shouldn't have done this. The one advantage the teen sleuth has over Brennan is that Drew at least has the foresight to tell her people--friends, adults, parents--where she's going to be. There's always going to be someone who can go to the cops and say, "Nancy's in trouble." Brennan keeps everything close to her, not sharing until she's good and ready. Granted, she's in a male-dominated field, and the men treat her like more like an annoyance than a professional, but you can't blame them if this is the way she acts.I reluctantly have to admit that I might be judging Déjà Dead a little too harshly, and if I am, it's probably because it wasn't what I was expecting. Having gotten to know Brennan via the television series, I was expecting a novelization of the series, but that isn't what I got. The calm, confident forensic anthropologist who knows her way around the lab like the back of her hand but whose social ineptness makes her so endearing is nowhere to be seen on this book. Nor do we see the suave Seeley Booth who can find his way around a crime scene with his eyes closed, but can't seem to see what's right in front of him when it comes to the chemistry between him and Brennan. The Brennan of the television series would never think of investigating on her own because she knows her strengths and weaknesses, and they are not police procedural work. The Brennan of Déjà Dead seems to think of herself as some sort of superwoman, somebody who is infallible and immune to physical harm until she puts herself in the thick of things and only then thinks it wasn't such a good idea. Between the two, I'm more drawn to the television series.Does that mean I won't read another of Reich's Temperance Brennan mysteries? I can honestly say, "I don't know." If I do, it won't be for awhile. Does that mean you shouldn't pick this up? I'm not one to tell people what they should and shouldn't read; I only recommend what I think people might like based on my own feelings, and unfortunately, Déjà Dead is not high on my list of book recommendations.

My daughter actually introduced me to the Bones series on television and I couldn’t get enough of it and binge watched episodes at every opportunity. When I realised it was adapted from a book series, I got even more excited. If like me, you have watched the series first before embarking on the books, it would probably be best to try and forget about Bones and go in with an open mind. Once I got over that the book is quite different in that Temperance’s personal life was not what I expected, in that she is a mother to a teenage daughter and has split up from her ex. Not a spoiler as we learn this early on in the book. Obviously if you watch the show, it’s different to how her personal life is on there.One thing I love about Temperance is her career as well as her quirkiness. Her job is fascinating as is her wealth of knowledge. It doesn’t take her long to realise that they have a serial killer on their hands. Only problem is, no one else seems interested and it’s down to Tempe to prove it which sees her putting her self at high risk. There are many heart stopping moments as she closes in on the killer and I love how she starts piecing everything together.Deja Dead was a highly enjoyable first book to a series of which I can’t wait to read more. You can’t not love Temperance. She is a fabulous protagonist who is without a doubt the main appeal as well as her job, which gives the reader an insight into a world you wouldn’t usually come across in many crime/detective books. Some parts can be a little bit gruesome but this just adds to the chills and thrills that this author delivers to her readers. Have to say after my expectations from the television show, my first introduction to the series did not disappoint and I’m excited to see what other cases Tempe finds herself working on.

After labouring through 70 pages I'm tossing this aside. I know it's her first novel, and Kathy Reichs' forensic credentials are unimpeachable, but did she not have the services of an equally-capable editor? As it is, I'm finding it unreadable, and looking for excuses not to pick it up to read! Ordinarily I enjoy crime procedurals, the process of investigation, the development of character, the deployment of clues and red herrings, tight location in real places, but this is so clunky, amateurish and turgidly-written, with awful similes on every page, and metaphors that leave me grinding my teeth, and the regular dropping of a French phrase to remind us once again we are in Quebec...Of course it has nothing in common with the long-running series Bones, save the name of Temperance Brennan.At least I got through two Patricia Cornwell novels before I realised it was essentially the same story each time retold. I'm not making that mistake with Kathy Reichs. Off to the charity shop you go.

By the time I’d hit page 100, I just didn’t want to stop reading – 5 StarsInitially, I wasn’t sure whether I was going to enjoy ‘Deja Dead’ as the opening chapters concentrate on a series of graphically detailed descriptions of grisly homicides. However, after a few chapters, the characters of Dr Tempe Brennan, her colleagues, and those of the officers working the murder cases really start to develop and, at that stage, I was hooked.The plot is satisfyingly complex, includes plenty of action, and gives insight into the science behind forensic investigations. For me though, it was the character development that held my attention; all the characters came across as individual personalities, and all felt very real. It’s also a very atmospheric novel, and Reichs descriptions conjured vivid imagery for each scene.At over five hundred pages, this isn’t a quick-read, but I became so caught-up in the story it never struck me as verbose. The only thing I never got to grips with were the street names mentioned as Tempe moved around certain areas of the city; they neither seemed to help nor hinder.Overall: Excellent crime thriller. I’ll definitely be reading more of this series.

This is the first Temperance Brennan book I have read. Having seen most of the 'Bones' series, I decided I would try the source of the TV series and chose the first book in the Temperance Brennen series. 'Tempe' has a very different back story to the 'Bones' character of the same name, but the author explains a lot of this. Kathy's writing is informed and scientifically precise (as you would, expect from a pro). The story has a lot of twists and turns, lots of informative scientific content (which I loved) and at times I heard myself saying 'just don't do that'. I found the first person dialogue very engaging and I saw the story unfold through Tempe's eyes. I am intending to read the next in the series when I have a week when I can just read as I didn't want to put this book down.

It didn't grip me, engage my interest, or draw me in I didn't finish it becuase I couldn't summon the interest to care what happened next.Everything seemed overdescribed. I suspect I would have been more interested if that stuff had been edited down to get rid of the flowery descriptive passages and the navel-gazing aspects. It would have been a shorter book, it's true, but more of it would have been story rather than word-count filler.