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Title: Grave Secrets : A Novel by Kathy Reichs ISBN: 0684859734 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 09 July, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.71
Rating: 4
Summary: Where Are You, Dr. Reichs?
Comment: Perhaps responding to earlier comments that her works were a tad too academic, brilliant forensic anthropologist/writer Kathy Reichs went the other way in this latest addition to her collection of novels. And the result is a mixed bag.
In a complete change of tone from her earlier books, Reichs spikes this fast-moving tale with one-liners, groaners, bon mots, and some hard-bitten detective talk straight out of "The Maltese Falcon." It certainly moves the plot along, but I miss the ultra-serious, and yes, sometimes boring Tempe Brennan, the forensic-anthropologist heroine of Reichs' mysteries.
In this outing, Brennan is in Guatemala to help a human-rights team unearth and account for the horribly massacred bodies in a mass grave--legacy of the last junta. That in itself is fascinating, but the plot suddenly widens to include a possible serial killer who is murdering the twenty-something daughters of the Guatemalan affluent. The Canadian ambassador to Guatemala is somehow mixed into the plot via his wayward teenaged daughter, and there are enough characters, plots, and subplots in the two parallel stories (mass graves and serial killer) to seriously confuse the reader if one is not paying close attention.
Tempe's love interest, Canadian cop Andrew Ryan, has some competition in the form of sexy Special Crimes investigator Bartolome Galiano, who just happens to be a former college roommate of Ryan's. But Tempe has no time for sex, what with her nauseatingly described foray into a teeming cesspool to find human body parts, and her dangerous and probably illegal trip into Guatemala's underbelly to unearth the killer or killers. The ends all tied together nicely, but there was quite a bit of information to digest, and this reader, for one, was left in a slight muddle.
No matter. The book is still worth four stars for the sheer energy and intelligence of the writing. I'm hoping the next book in the series brings back the didactic and frustrating Tempe Brennan her fans have come to know and love.
Rating: 5
Summary: Dead and Buried
Comment: Grave Secrets , the fifth Temperance Brennan novel, is another excellent addition to the series which has blasted Kathy Reichs to fame.
This time, Tempe is sent to Guatemala to recover the bodies of the dead (known as "the Disappeareds") massacred during that country's vile civil war. It is in the village of Chupan Ya that she uncovers 28 dead bodies, and on the way to the site, two other forensic scientists are attacked on the road, shot, and left for dead. It is the beginning of an investigation which will haunt Tempe in the coming weeks.
Shortly after, her help is sought by the local police. Four teenage girls have gone missing in Guatemala City, and one of them is the daughter of the Canadian Ambassador. Is there a serial killer at work? Soon after, a decomposing body is found in a septic tank of a local hotel, and the investigating begins in earnest.
Reichs' writing is sharp; the plotting tight and complex. Her characters are interesting, often drawn with only a few choice words, and her descriptions of the dead are brilliant. Reichs' books ring with authenticity, as she has been and done the same sorts of things as her main character. This fuels the writing with realism and a relentless compassion for the dead, which really comes out in the story. She never lets you forget that these people walked, breathed, laughed, talked...that they used to be us.
Her use of forensic detail is interesting, and the way she writes about science doesn't make you feel as if you're reading a textbook. (In this area, she is almost on a par with Cornwell.) However, with this book there is one too many plot lines, leading them to become confused in the mind of the reader. However, careful reading does tend to remedy this.
Guatemala is described well, the horrors of the war still brood over the landscape.
Tempe's relationship with Ryan develops and complicates with this book when she also finds herself attracted to a Guatemalan police officer, who once knew Ryan. Tempe's conflict is done well and serves to bolster the roundness of her character. Being a devout Cornwell fan (I even liked Isle of Dogs ) it is hard for me to say, but Tempe is a more realistic, well drawn, and likeable character than Kay Scarpetta.
The... conclusion... is chilling, and brings the book to a satisfying close. While Grave Secrets is not quite as good as last year's offering (Fatal Voyage), it is still first class.
Rating: 3
Summary: Not Satisfying
Comment: "Grave Secrets" by Kathy Reichs. CD Audio Version read by Katherine Borowitz.
Kathy Reichs is well know for writing novels that employ her in-depth knowledge of forensic analysis to surprise, sometimes shock and often stimulate the reader. The latest book, "Grave Secrets", however is like a large kitchen with too many cooks and too much to eat. You snack something here and snicker something there and soon, you have lost the edge of your hunger, but you are NOT satisfied.
"Grave Secrets" begins with the assignment of Tempe Brennan to a burial site in a small village in Guatemala where government death squads have killed all the women and children, Brennan's assignment is to document the deaths, the mode(s) of killing and the calendar time of death. Some of her co-workers are killed in an ambush, and this later appears to be an assassination attempt on Tempe Brennan. In the middle of this, because of her experience and her writing of papers on the subject, Brennan is asked to assist in the exhumation and identification of human remains in a septic system. Then, the over-sexed Canadian ambassador to Guatemala appears to be involved and his daughter is missing. Tempe flies back to Montreal with the Ambassador's wife, where the missing daughter has been found, but, in my opinion, this visit to Montreal really does not advance the plot. The trip does permit Tempe to meet with Andrew Ryan, a romantic interest.
The next plot line involves stem cell research, and there is a substantial tutorial on embryonic stem cell research and the potential for help to victims of diseases such as Parkinson's. At least twice, the author has her characters describe President George W. Bush's decision on limiting stem cell "lines' as wrong. Finally, in the next to last chapter after an unbecoming description of an attack of diaherra (where later proves to be caused by drugs slipped into a soda can), Tempe Brennan resolves all the plot lines. The last chapter is tinged with romance as Tempe tries to decide between Andrew Ryan and a Spanish version, nicknamed "The Bat", who had gone to college with Andrew Ryan.
There was just too much going on, too quick a resolution of the twisted plot lines and then, the novel changed from a mystery "who dun it" into a romance. The overall book did not satisfy me. The reader, Katherine Borowitz, was excellent and handled both the French names in Montreal and the Spanish names in Guatemala City with appropriate accents. I enjoyed listening to her as I commuted on 495, the ring road around Boston.
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Title: The Murder Book by Jonathan Kellerman ISBN: 0345452534 Publisher: Ballantine Books (Trd) Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Q Is for Quarry by Sue Grafton ISBN: 0399149155 Publisher: Putnam Pub Group Pub. Date: 14 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Fatal Voyage by Kathy Reichs ISBN: 0671028375 Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: July, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Four Blind Mice by James Patterson ISBN: 0316693006 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 18 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: Stone Kiss by Faye Kellerman ISBN: 0446530387 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 30 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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