Staff Pick: Deja Dead

In Kathy Reichs' Deja Dead, Dr. Temperance Brennan is a forensic anthropologist from North Carolina. After a shaky break up with her husband, she moves to Canada to work in Montreal's Laboratoire de Medecine Legale in an attempt to get a fresh start. There, it's her job to examine recovered bodies to help the police solve murders and missing persons cases.

During the course of her job, she finds the bodies of several women who appear to have been brutally murdered. In spite of the police not believing her, she thinks the cases are linked and that they have a sadistic serial killer on their hands. Determined to get justice for the women, she sets out on her own to find answers, and attracts the attention of the killer, putting herself and friends in grave danger.

I picked up Deja Dead after learning that one of my favorite TV shows, Bones, is loosely based upon this series. I wasn't sure what to think of the story at first because it was easy to see from the start just how different the book and TV series actually are, but I decided to keep reading in spite of that fact. I'm glad I did. After a couple of chapters, I found myself no longer trying to compare the book and TV series and simply reading the book for the story itself. It's very fast paced once it gets going and draws the reader in. And, because the writer is a forensic anthropologist herself, the details of the story ring true. That was one of the things I liked about the book - how real the details seemed to be.

I'm not the strongest fan of Mysteries, but the Temperance Brennan novels could easily change my mind if they are all like Deja Dead. I'm very glad that I decided to read it and would highly recommend it, especially to those who favor Bones. If you'd like to check out Deja Dead, you can place a hold on our copy with your library card number by clicking here.

-Amber