Review by Malcolm Martland on show 29th Oct
Kathy Reichs is a forensic anthropologist for the office of the chief medical examiner, North Carolina and for the Canadian province of Quebec. Her character Temperance Brennan has the same role and in this the third book of the series she begins her duties investigating the death of a nine-year-old girl who is caught in outlaw biker crossfire. Her investigations of the outlaw biker groups prove that they are a far more intimidating lot than those friendly hobbyists we see on the UK roads. Unfortunately, her wayward sister Harry, dumps her son, Kit, with Temperance and he promptly falls in love with Harley-Davidson bikes and the gangs that drive them.
While unearthing the bodies of former bikers who had been killed because they really annoyed each other the body or partial body of a young girl is discovered. The skull is quickly identified because it has a drain inserted to relieve hydrocephalus, so a previous medical history is apparent. Quite coincidentally she happens to mention this to a friend down in the US who has a partial skeleton belonging to the same individual. And of course after a lot of rigmarole it is proven that they are the same individual.
The body count of dead bikers quickly racks up, and Temperance's relationships with her French-speaking Canadian detective colleagues are put under some tension. She becomes paranoid about one detective called Quickwater who never responds to her questions and never speaks to her. When she complained to her boss about him she is told that he was made deaf two years ago when an explosion happened in close vicinity but they hope his hearing will recover with time, she is suitably chastened.
Although I found the reading easy, I did not enjoy this story as much as her first two novels, possibly because of the biker subject matter and also because I got fed up with her switching between the US and Canada all the time. Some of the forensic scenarios were also a bit far-fetched, like trying to use DNA analysis to identify identical twins that had been blown up in the same explosion! Anyway if you want to read Deadly Decisions by Kathy Reichs it'll be back in the charity shop on Saturday morning.
Malcolm Martland 29th October 2009
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Malcolm F. Martland,
Harbour View, St. Marys,
Isles of Scilly, TR21 0NW, U.K.
tel 01720 422673
mfmartland@sky.com
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