Review: Death du Jour by Kathy Reichs (audio review)

Death du Jour by Kathy Reichs

Narrated by Bonnie Hurren

Chivers Audio Books

1999

Length: 13 hrs, 30 min

From the back of the audio case: March in Montreal: it is a bitterly cold night and in the eerie silence of an old church, forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan digs carefully. She is there to exhume the remains of a nun who died in 1888 and is now proposed for possible sainthood. But the body has been moved. Why have the nun’s remains been disturbed? And what will Tempe discover when the frozen ground finally yields to her tools and she lifts the rotten coffin lid?

My thoughts:  This is the second in Kathy Reichs’ Temperance Brennan series and I decided to give the audio a try. I love the television show, Bones, so I decided to start reading the series that the show is loosely based on/inspired by.

Death du Jour is an intense thriller, filled with suspense and quite a few twists. It does get a bit technical at times, but given Tempe’s profession, that only makes sense. While looking into the remains of a nun that is up for sainthood, Tempe is pulled into another case, that of a number of apparently unrelated murders which eventually lead her to a strange cult – Quebec’s Solar Temple cult. The case spans from Quebec to the Carolinas, and we learn more about Tempe herself, her relationship with her family and her job as a professor. 

There is one section where we find out in great detail how the many insects found on a body
can be analyzed to discover the time of death – now as I was listening to this, all I kept thinking of was Hodgekins from the tv show. Since he is not a character in the books, it is actually Tempe giving us this information. She also gives us a
mini-lesson on cults including types, a history of cults, cult leaders,
and those who would be attracted to cults. Now this is something that the Tempe from the tv show would in fact know. Overall, I enjoyed the story, despite the gruesome deaths, and I am looking forward to reading more of this series.

Audio thoughts: I thought Bonnie Hurren did a great job of giving each character their own distinct personality. I got the cd’s of this audio and my only criticism is that the tracks are really long, some as long as 30 minutes. This presents a problem when the cd skips or I wanted to move from the car to the house – I either had to wait til I got to the next track, or relisten to the track. Other than that, I thought the audio version of the book was great and will definitely consider listening to more of this series.

Have you run into this – audio books that have really long tracks? 

(I borrowed this audio book from the library.)

Books in this series: 

1. Deja Dead                                  9.  Break No Bones
2. Death du Jour                       10.  Bones to Ashes
3. Deadly Decisions                 11.  Devil Bones
4. Fatal Voyage                         12.  206 Bones
5. Grave Secrets                        13.  Spider Bones
6. Bare Bones                              14.  Flash & Bones
7. Monday Mourning               15.  Bones are Forever – due out Aug 2012
8. Cross Bones