Review: DEATH DU JOUR

Death Du Jour by Kathy Reichs
Book 2 of the Temperance Brennan series
Read by Bonnie Hurren
Genre: crime fiction
Format: paperback & audiobook

About Death Du Jour:

Assaulted by the bitter cold of a Montreal winter, the American-born Dr. Temperance Breman, Forensic Anthropologist for the Province of Quebec, digs for a corpse where Sister Elisabeth Nicolet, dead over a century and now a candidate for sainthood, should lie in her grave. A strange, small coffin, buried in the recesses of a decaying church, holds the first clue to the cloistered nun's fate. The puzzle surrounding Sister Elisabeth's life and death provides a welcome contrast to discoveries at a burning chalet, where scorched and twisted bodies await Tempe's professional expertise. Who were these people? What brought them to this gruesome fate? Homicide Detective Andrew Ryan, with whom Tempe has a combustive history, joins her in the arson investigation. From the fire scene they are drawn into the worlds of an enigmatic and controversial professor, a mysterious commune, and a primate colony on a Carolina island.

Source: Info in the About Death Du Jour was taken from Goodreads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/128756.Death_du_Jour on 25/02/2013.

Review:

After the disappointment with Book 1, I wasn't sure I was going to read this book but it was already sitting in my TBR (to be read) shelf so it got read, eventually. Plus the fact that I still couldn't let go of the hope that I would find an Agent Seeley Booth counterpart character in there somewhere... For some reason, a romantic dalliance between Brennan and Ryan doesn't ring true to me. Maybe it is yet still to grow on me. Maybe it might make better sense a few books down the line... Maybe...

When I started reading this book I was really, really hoping that Brennan's TSTL (too stupid to live) would abate with this book. It seems I was wrong. Majorly annoying!! So Brennan divulges confidential information about an ongoing investigation to a potential suspect because she's feaking out. The death and destruction she encounters with her work is getting too much and is stressing her out. I'm sorry, but looks to me like she is no longer professional enough to work at her job, good forensic skills or not. And like in Book 1, she hightails it to the rescue with no thought to proper planning thus getting herself bashed in. Again. Consequently needed rescuing. And I am expected to root for that stupid git? However this book is not all that bad. There is a good layering of plots making the story unpredictable. Unpredictable is good in a crime fiction. Then there is the fantastic world building. And I like the way Bonnie Hurren reads. But I don't think I would be reading anymore books in this series even though I got the next 8 Temperance Brennan books in my TBR shelf already. Not anytime soon anyway...

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 3.5
Character development = 2
Story itself = 2.5
Ending = 3.5
World building = 4.5
Cover art = 1.5
Pace = N/A (12 hours & 51 mins of listening time)
Plot = 3.5
Narrator = 4

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 cherries