Death Du Jour

Testing out a new murder mystery series.  Always interesting when you start reading a new series, will I relate to the lead characters? will I like the premise that the detective's job lends itself toward solving crimes?  And the most important thing; does this idea seem plausible?

Kathy Reichs has an incredible background in her real life, forensic anthropologist for the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires e de Medecine Legale for province of Quebec and also Chief Medical Examiner, State of North Carolina.  She pours her personal persona into her detective character, Temperance Brennon, who it seems lives out a similar career path working between Canada and the US and adding in a little extra drama and suspense to the life the is normal for Reichs.

This turns out to be a very interesting premise for a mystery series.  So much so that for many years, Temperance has also been the TV forensic anthropologist, who goes by the nickname, Bones, on her own TV series. 

Death Du Jour is the second in a series which will eventually include 19 novels.  The plot here is that Temp Brennon has the skeletal remains of a woman in Montreal whose history she is researching.  Another call comes in to work with police detective, Andrew Ryan following up on some remains found in a arson set house fire.  This leads them on the trail of some other bodies that are found in North Carolina.  How the story progresses to encompass all the different locations and bodies and tie them all together keeps the reader entertained for many pages.  There are along with the plot twists in-depth descriptions of how to process the bones, clothes, and flesh of a corpse.  There is one point where I think three pages, not exaggerating is spent on the different kinds of bugs that are found around a dead body and at what depths and what that means about length and level of decomposition.  Some of these descriptions are not for the faint of heart. 

I will try another of the Temperance Brennon mystery novels, just to see if I get addicted to her style.