Deja Dead book review

Déjà Dead by Kathy Reichs
Published by Pocket Books Pages: 532
Goodreads

Her life is devoted to justice; for those she never even knew. In the year since Temperance Brennan left behind a shaky marriage in North Carolina, work has often preempted her weekend plans to explore Quebec. When a female corpse is discovered meticulously dismembered and stashed in trash bags, Temperance detects an alarming pattern and she plunges into a harrowing search for a killer. But her investigation is about to place those closest to her, her best friend and her own daughter, in mortal danger...

I was a huge fan of the “Bones” TV show and really wanted to experience the books that were behind the genius. Let me just start off this review by saying that they are VERY different. This book was not what I expected and I’m still not sure whether that’s something I’m happy or sad about. I do think the writing style might have something to do with that, as I found at times that I got lost in the jargon and lost sight of the actual crime. I did really enjoy learning about the bones and what Tempe does for a living in Deja Dead, overall it was a good introduction to the series. I just wish that there had been a little bit more explanation for some of the technical language.

The characters are where I fall down when I sat down to write this review I realised that I can’t remember who was who and who did what. I think that was my biggest problem with Deja Dead, I was kind of reading it in a haze of not quite knowing who was who and what their role in the story was. We obviously meet Temperance Brennan and I think I would have liked her more if I hadn’t watched the TV show. Now here is a shock horror but I actually thought the TV version was better than the book version, but that’s just my opinion. I think there was a lot more going on with the character in the TV show and it was a more enjoyable experience following her around.

I think the best bit of Deja Dead would definitely have to be the development of all of the murders. I really enjoyed Brennan’s perseverance with the police and never letting go of her ideas. I thought it was an interesting look at how those kinds of cases work and it also offered a nice insight into the work with bones and just how much detail and information that can be gleaned from them. I loved learning about all of that side of things. It really made the book interesting and unique. I am actually interested to see where the series goes because this one got quite personal and contained quite a lot based around Brennan’s life and friendship groups.

The worst bit of Deja Dead for me would be the use of the technical language, it made the story feel very disjointed and I think I spent WAY too much time trying to work out what she meant and trying to refer back to the part where she talks about it. I’m not sure if you could have written the book without it but I really didn’t enjoy it and I would have much preferred to have the book without it and to live in perfect ignorance, maybe. I mean it definitely hasn’t put me off continuing the series so we’ll see how the next one does with confusing me, fingers crossed I do okay with it all.

I would definitely recommend Deja Dead, I enjoyed the story and the way that the murders were being solved. I have already downloaded the second one so I’m excited to see where the story ends up going!

Have you read this series? What was your favourite part? Does it get better as the books progress? Let me know in the comments!