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Description edit
Kathy Reichs blasts into Patricia Cornwell territory -- and onto the New York Times bestseller list -- with this critically acclaimed debut novel inspired by Reichs' own career. Dr. Temperance Brennan, the wry, impassioned director of forensic anthropology for the province of Quebec, is... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Summary edit
In the year since Temperance Brennen left behind a shaky marriage in North Carolina, work has often preempted her weeken plans to explore Quebec. When a female corpse is discovered meticulously dismembered and stashed in trash bags, Tempe detects an alarming pattern- and she plunges into a... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)
Characters edit
- Dr. Temperance Brennan: Dr. Temperance Brennan (aka Tempe) is a forensic anthropologist, who investigates human remains at crime scenes where the flesh is too degraded for a coroner to obtain evidence. She is a native of the Carolinas and one of only fifty board-certified forensic anthropologists in North America. he then accepted a job at the Laboratoire des Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Quebec. She splits her time between teaching at the University of North Carolina and advising on crime scenes, and spends about half of the year in each country.
- Monsieur Claudel: Homicide investigator. Montreal Urban Community Police. Often surly toward Dr. Brennan, Dislikes her, thinks she has no right joining the police
- Andrew Ryan: Homicide investigator. Montreal Urban Community Police.
- Leo Fortier: A suspect of the murder of five woman
- Monsieur Charbonneau: Homicide investigator. Montreal Urban Community Police.
- Jean Bertrand: Homicide investigator. Montreal Urban Community Police. Ryan's partner
- Lucie Dumont: Information desk at Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale.
- Gabby - Gabrielle Macaulay: Tempe's best friend, she seems very distracted and in some kind of trouble, always disappearing. College friend of Tempe's. Trois-Rivières, Quebec. French mother, English father.
- Isabelle Gagnon: Murder victim
- Kathleen Reichs: Tempe's daughter who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina and contact with her is by phone.
- Chantale Trottier: Murder victim
- Margaret Adkins: Murder victim
- Leo Fortier: Person of interest
- Grace Damas: Murder victim
- Margot: Dog trained to find dead bodies.
- Marc Bergeron: Quebec's forensic odontologist.
- Mathieu: Six-year old boy home alone.
- Pete: Tempe's estranged husband.
- Dan Brown: One of the autopsy technicians.
- Marie-Claude Gautier: Murder victim.
- Lucie Dumont: Research expert in Dr. Brennan's lab.
- St. Jacques: Suspect
- Jean Pierre Tanguay: Person of interest
- St. Denis: Dr. Brennan's lab assistant.
- Pierre Gilbert: Crime van investigator.
- Jean Pelletier: One of the four other pathologists.
- Bipin Halevi: Store owner.
- Constance Pitre: Murder victim.
- Francine Morisette-Champoux: Murder victim
- Monsieur Champoux: Husband of the Murder Victim
- Monsieur Lacroix: Biology investigator in crime lab.
- Francoeur: Investigator.
- Alsa: Monkey that was Murdered
- Birdie: Dr. Brennan's cat.
- Lisa: Autopsy technician.
- John Samue "J.S." Dobzhansky: Quantico, Virginia expert and old friend of Dr. Brennans.
- Dr. Pierre LaManche: Director of the Laboratoire de Medecine Legale
- Julie: Hooker on Main
- Jewel Tambeaux: Hooker on Main
- Myriam Weider: Missing person
- Solange Leger: Missing person.
- Evelyn Fontaine: Missing person.
- Father Poirier: Archdiocese representative.
- Aaron Calvert: Norman Oklahoma expert called by Dr. Brennan.
- Parker T. Bailey, Ph.D.: Biology professor at University of Quebec and friend of Temperance
- Gagne: Add a description of this character.
- Poirette: A hooker who Gabby worked with.
- J.S. Tempe
- Stefan Patineau
- Nikos Damas: Grace's husband.
- Dr. Nguyen
- David DeSalvo
- Jean-Marc
- Emile Roy: Caretaker of an old monastery.
- Antoine Janvier: Owns a diner Brennan visits.
- Piquot
- Valencia
- Marie Claude LaPerrière
- Banco
- Groulx
- Marie-Lise
- Cambronne
- Bird
- Max Ferranti
- Marc Dallair
- Nathalie Ayers
- John Samuel Dobzhansky
- Monsieur Emile Roy
- Hélène
- darlin
- Kathy Reichs
- Patricia Cornwell
- St. Lambert
- Mr. Damas
- Katy
- Daniel
Quotes edit
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“"Anyway, he didn't like the aroma. Said"-I skimmed the incident report to find the exact phrase-"'the smell of Satan rose up out of the bag and surrounded my soul.' Unquote." "A poet. I like that," said Pelletier. "Wonder what he'd say about my shorts."”
Conversation between Tempe and Pelletier (Reading bout a monkey - Alsa from the incident report) -
“Flies buzzed and circled around it, like academics at a free buffet.”
Dr. Brennan -
“I walked to the desk, zigzagging through maggots like a child playing jacks.”
Dr. Brennan -
“He looked like a man on the way to a prostate exam.”
Dr. Brennan describing Claudel as he walked toward the autopsy room. -
“I needed him here like I needed a yeast infection.”
Dr. Brennan referring to Claudel. -
“If people were graded on handshakes, he’d get a D-minus.”
Dr. Brennan, after shaking hands with Father Poirier. -
“Each of the names was burned into my mind, like a brand on a heifer’s rump.”
Dr. Brennan referring to the murder victims. -
“She was thin as soup in a homeless shelter,...”
Dr. Brennan referring to Lucie Dumont.
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
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We’re too absorbed in communicating among ourselves to worry about an almighty architect.
Highlighted by 74 Kindle customers -
I’ve long suspected that many of my memories of childhood are actually drawn from old pictures, that they are a composite of snapshots, a mosaic of celluloid images reworked into a remembered reality. Kodak cast backward. Maybe it’s better to recall the past that way. We rarely take pictures of sad occasions.
Highlighted by 48 Kindle customers -
“From time to time the human species spawns predators that feed on those around them. They’re not the species. They’re mutations of the species. In my opinion these freaks have no right to suck oxygen from the atmosphere. But they’re here, so I help cage them up and put them where they can’t hurt others. I make life safer for the folks who get up, go to work each day, raise their kids or their tomatoes, or their tropical fish, and watch the ball game in the evening. They are the human species.”
Highlighted by 33 Kindle customers -
I’d smelled my moonshine sweetheart and seen his light in the eyes around me. I’d loved it once. Hell, I loved it still. But the enchantment would destruct. For me, any trifling dalliance and the affair would consume and overpower. So I’d walked away from it, with twelve slow steps. And I had stayed away. Having been lovers, we could never be friends.
Highlighted by 26 Kindle customers -
I am a woman whose moods are influenced by the weather, my outlook rising and falling with the barometer.
Highlighted by 26 Kindle customers -
They never recognized them as the first rungs on a ladder of desperation until they were too high up to get off except by falling.
Highlighted by 20 Kindle customers -
Ideas come easily to me, enacting them comes harder. I usually let things go. Perhaps it’s an escape hatch, my way of allowing myself to double back and ease out the side door on a lot of my schemes. Irresolute about my social life, obsessive in my work.
Highlighted by 20 Kindle customers -
When summer arrives in Montreal it flounces in like a rumba dancer: all ruffles and bright cotton, with flashing thighs and sweat-slicked skin.
Highlighted by 19 Kindle customers -
They ran through the rain, clinging together like socks just out of the dryer.
Highlighted by 17 Kindle customers -
spurious. I stood and looked
Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers
Setting & Locations edit
Canada
Organizations edit
- University of North Carolina-Charotte: Where Dr. Brennan taught.
First Sentence edit
I wasn't thinking about the man who'd blown himself up.
Themes & Symbolism edit
Series & Lists edit
This is book 1 of 16 in Temperance Brennan Novels. (standard series)
Followed by Death du Jour.
Authors & Contributors edit
- Kathy Reichs (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Pocket Star
Country: USA
Publication Date: 1997
ISBN: 0671011367
Page Count: 411
Publisher: Pocket Star
Country: USA
Publication Date: 1997
ISBN: 0671011367
Page Count: 411
Awards edit
- Arthur Ellis Award (1998: best first novel)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 813.54
Subjects edit
Popular Tags
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Links to Supplemental Material edit
- Kathy Reichs: Author's website
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