Monday Mourning (Temperence Brennan)

A riveting new Temperance Brennan forensic thriller from Kathy Reichs, the internationally acclaimed forensic anthropologist and New York Times bestselling author...

Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist for both North Carolina and Quebec, has come from Charlotte to Montreal during the bleak days of December to testify as an expert witness at a murder trial.

She should be going over her notes, but instead she's digging in the basement of a pizza parlor. Not fun. Freezing cold. Crawling rats. And now, the skeletonized remains of three young women. How did they get there? When did they die?

Homicide detective Luc Claudel, never Tempe's greatest fan, believes the bones are historic. Not his case, not his concern. The pizza parlor owner found nineteenth-century buttons in the cellar with the skeletons. Claudel takes them as an indicator of the bones' antiquity.

But something doesn't make sense. Tempe examines the bones in her lab and establishes approximate age with Carbon 14. Further study of tooth enamel tells her where the women were born. If she's right, Claudel has three recent murders on his hands. Definitely his case.

Detective Andrew Ryan, meanwhile, is acting mysteriously. What are those private phone calls he takes in the other room, and why does he suddenly disappear just when Tempe is beginning to hope he might be a permanent part of her life? Looks like more lonely nights for Tempe and Birdie, her cat.

As Tempe searches for answers in both her personal and professional lives, she finds herself drawn deep into a web of evil from which there may be no escape. Women have disappeared, never to return....Tempe may be next.

With its powerful mix of nail-biting suspense and cutting-edge forensic science, Monday Mourning is the best yet from this superbly gifted, megastar author who, as New York Newsday says, is "the real thing."

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Tempe is back in Quebec for this installment, thank heavens. The interplay between Tempe and her Canadian colleagues always seems to sizzle, while the American connections drag and bore. The usual players are all back in action, including the oddball Chardonneau, cranky Claudel and of course, on again/off again love interest Andrew Ryan.

The story is tightly packed into what seems like not as many pages as usual. The forensic details are exquisitely presented, apart from three yawn-inducing lectures about carbon dating, among other things. While there are a whole lot of implausible plot lines I can swallow in the genre, I have a hard time believing Tempe's boss LaManche has never heard of carbon dating. The basic plot line is interesting, the crime being solved is, sadly, easy to believe happened. The solving of the crime itself moves along at a relatively believable pace, although with others, I think the decision to have Tempe and her girlfriend investigate the crime themselves a la CSI was a poor decision on Reichs' part.

Where this book fails is exactly where the past few have failed. The "romance" between Ryan and Tempe is not particularly interesting, no matter how blue Reichs wants to make his eyes. He's inattentive and secretive, she's snotty and throws tantrums. I don't know what on earth these two see in each other, unless it's all physical (Reichs makes sure we know Tempe is a gorgeous size 4 and Ryan is a tall hunk). The reason for Ryan's distraction is offered up on a silver platter right around page 120 or so, although we the readers aren't supposed to get it until the jarring end of the book.

I can easily recommend Monday Mourning to any Reichs fan and to fans who've been turned off of the Scarpetta books because she lost focus on the forensics. Reichs is well-credentialed in forensic anthropology and it shows without reading like a textbook (apart from those three preachy parts). The Ryan romance angle could be dropped and I think both characters would be better for it. If Reichs really has to have some kind of sexual tension between her leading lady and someone, I would rather see her explore the odd hate/hate relationship Tempe has with the prickly but sexy Claudel. There was a glimmer of something hinted at in the final pages of this book, one that had more heat than all the scenes between Tempe and Ryan combined.

27 of 29 found the following review helpful:

Murder In A Thin CrustOct 15, 2004
By Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™"
Bare Bones, Kathy Reichs previous novel shows some signs of becoming too personally involved with Temperance Brennan's personal life to the exclusion of the real story. And the start of Monday Mourning did little to dispel this. Tempe is back in Montreal for a stint as their forensic anthropologist seemingly completely wired. Her relationship with Detective Andrew Ryan is going through a rough spot (which is mostly in her head), and the discovery of three skeletons in the cellar of a pizza parlor forces her to work with one of her least favorite detectives, Luc Claudel. And her best friend shows up on the verge of divorce. Nothing is going right.

Claudel and Tempe square off over the age of the remains. He wants to believe that they are ancient history, but Tempe has a hunch that they are more recent. When an unknown caller reveals that something had been going on in the building Tempe becomes fixated on finding the truth. Be prepared for a wave of archeological science as Tempe not only proves the age of the bones, but manages to pinpoint where they had lived. And close inspection of the remains reveals other horrific possibilities.

As Tempe's personal crises build so does the tention of the case. Something horrible lies behind the slim evidence, and it has never gone to sleep. Now threatened, a noose begins to tighten about Tempe's own neck. What awaits is subtle and merciless, and Tempe will find herself faced with true darkness even as she tries to resolve a 20 year old wrong. A whirl of tense action spins its way to a gripping ending.

For my tastes, there is a bit too much Tempe in this story. For a mature woman with a great deal of responsibility, she manages to turn herself into a nervous wreck over Andrew Ryan. There are early moments in the book that made me thing that Reichs was determined to become just another Pat Cornwell clone, and I despaired that the forensic detective genre had gone to romances every one.

But Reichs somehow pulls back from the precipice and gets down to the business of writing a strong and compelling thriller. I found the core mystery one that offered a sufficient number of subtle clues and red herrings to keep the reader guessing, while the plot marches on at great tempo. Reichs will remain on my 'buy in hardcover' list.

19 of 20 found the following review helpful:

Bring Back the Old TempeSep 02, 2004
By Jody
Although the Tempe Brennan of Monday Mourning is vaguely reminiscent of the Tempe of Deja Dead, I'm not very fond of this new one. There seems to be a trend in current best-sellers toward stream of consciousness and rather bizarre figures of speech. While Reichs writes an excellent plot, the odd conversational style and emotional unevenness of the characters in this book are distracting. For example, if my obviously distraught best friend visited me in a foreign country and disappeared, I believe I'd call out the Mounties rather than rather casually mentioning that she'd been gone for four days and making sporadic phone calls to see if she'd arrived anywhere expected. If a "love interest" started acting peculiar, I believe most modern women would find a way to find out what was going on, rather than tip-toeing around the situation, which Tempe does for most of the novel. This behavior, from a successful,well-educated professional woman, is simply not credible. What I always enjoyed about the old Tempe was the universality of her emotions and behavior in a very non-mainstream profession. This was not evident in Monday Mourning, and I missed it.

13 of 14 found the following review helpful:

Stunningly ReichsJul 19, 2004
By Robert Busko
I have been a fan of Kathy Reichs since I read her first book, Deja Dead in 1997. Her stories have gotten better in the intervening years....more depth to her characters, including Tempe, more depth to her stories, great plot lines, and a steady pace that keeps the reader hanging on. I agree with other reviewers that Monday Mourning is her strongest work yet....but all of her books are worth reading.

Tempe is in Montreal to testify in a murder case (what else). While she is there, she is called to investigate three skeletons discovered in the basement of a small pizza parlor. Upon first impressions there is some thought that the bodies are "historical", and this is supported when 19th century evidence is discovered near the remains. However, Tempe isn't convinced. She carbon dates the remains and discovers that they day to the 1980's confirming her fears.

As background we discover that Tempe's love life isn't going well. Her significant other isn't giving her the attention she needs. Further, her male co-workers continue to take her and her contributions to police work lightly.

Suffice it to say that the reader is in store for another wonderful ride through fictional police work. A tight story with great characters, Monday Mourning is sure to make you a Reichs fan if you're not already there.

8 of 8 found the following review helpful:

Monday MourningAug 23, 2004
By P. Gannon
I have read all of Kathy Reich's books at least 4 times. Dearly love them all except for the last one, Monday Mourning.

It was flat and somewhat boring. Mainly, Tempe's unrelenting churlishness toward her love, Andrew Ryan, is tiresome and annoying. (Shut up, woman!) If I were Andrew Ryan, I would head for the door - fast.

There has also been a very subtle but noticeable trend from book to book lately of how wonderful and important Tempe is. Come on, Kathy, re-read Deja Dead and get a clue. Tempe was incredibly vulnerable but also strong throughout. Now she is just kind of a self-important, boring woman who seems to be going all out to drive a great guy away.

After Bare Bones, Monday Mourning was a disappointment.

Pat Gannon

Forest City, NC

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