Déja Dead (Kathy Reichs)

Temperance (or Tempe) Brennen is the Director of Forensic Anthropology for the Province of Quebec and specializes in bone study and identification. Her job is to identify and examine bones found at historical sites mostly but occasionally she will have a crime scene to work. After days of planning her weekend trip to Quebec City she gets a call about two hydro workers who have found skeletal remains near a hydro line they are working on. When Tempe examines the body she discovers in fact that it is not a historical site and possibly not the first in a sting of murders that have been occurring. She may have just found Montreal’s new serial killer but no one in her division is willing to believe her claims; especially inspector Luc Claudel, homicide detective with the Montreal Urban Community Police. He, as well as other detectives on the case, find no motive to relate the murders to one another. Still, Tempe continues to investigate on her own, risking her job in the process as she infuriates Claudel. Tempe is always feels extremely sympathetic about the victims of the crimes she investigates and will often put herself in their shoes and put herself into emotional turmoil. She is a 40-year-old divorcee who recently moved back to Montreal from upstate Virginia. She finds it hard to associate with some of the younger staff in her office but is comfortable talking with the director of the “Laboratoire de Médecine Légale”, Pierre LaManche despite the fact that he is her boss. Her friend from anthropology school, Gabby, is studying the subculture of prostitutes and feels that she is involved in something dangerous but doesn’t know what it is. When Gabby drops out of sight Tempe gets worried and rightfully so. Tempe’s sense of sympathy and inability to do her job without getting emotionally involved in her cases makes it all the more interesting when her serial killer theory comes true.

The first body that Tempe finds is wrapped in plastic bags with the torso skinned all the way to the bone. There is a toilet plunger resting on the pelvic bone and the head of the victim is severed, twisted, and wrinkled due to the heat it has been exposed to outdoors. All of the victims are females who were bludgeoned to death, dismembered with extreme precision and dumped in bags in secluded areas. The killer cuts around his victims bones rather than through them. These cuts lead to Tempe to the killer.

“When summer arrives in Montreal it flashes like a rumba dancer: all ruffles and bright cotton, with flashing thighs and sweat-slicked skin. It is s ribald celebration that begins in June and continues until September.” I like this passage because it gives life to the city, which is mentioned in the book several times. I’m sure the city would seem to work against you if you were in law enforcement.
“I could see DEJ, SQ and cops from St. Lambert scattered here and there, each wearing a different uniform and distinctive insignia. The assemblage reminded me of the mixed flocks birds will sometimes form, spontaneous jamborees of twittering and chirping, each bird declaring its species by the colour of its plumage and the stripes on its wings”
I like this quote because if you do see a large group of cops it is similar to a flock of birds. Over the summer there was a police memorial parade and all the cops hung out after they had finished their walk, just chatting and having drinks and it was like a weird flock of birds congregating under a tent.