Review: DEADLY DECISIONS

Deadly Decisions by Kathy Reichs
Book 3 of the Temperance Brennan series
Read by Lorelei King
Genre: crime fiction
Format: paperback & audiobook

About Deadly Decisions:

It is a beautiful Spring day and in the quiet woods of the FBI's headquarters at Quantico, forensic anthropologist, Dr. Temperance Brennan, is teaching a body recovery course when she is urgently called back to Quebec. A gruesome duty awaits her: a biker war is raging and two of the foot soldiers have blown themselves up. The only person qualified to make sense of what remains is Tempe. When the body of a nine-year-old girl is wheeled into the morgue - slain in biker crossfire - Tempe vows to lend her skills to fight this evil, and enters the dark underworld of the bikers.

Source: Info in the About Deadly Decisions was taken from Goodreads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17566551-deadly-decisions on 04/03/2013.

Review:

I like it that the book series gives me an alternative scenario to a well-loved story. An alternate Bones story. What remains to be seen is whether I would like that alternate story or not...

After the disappointment with Death Du Jour I wasn't planning on reading this book. However Deadly Decisions is already loaded into my smartphone and the paperback is already sitting in my TBR (to be read) shelf. So it got read... I really did not like Brennan's unprofessional tendency of divulging information of an on-going investigation in Death Du Jour. And unfortunately that persisted into this book which leads me to believe that this kind of behaviour might be something that can be expected through out the series on top of her TSTL (too stupid to live) tendencies.

So our heroine knows exactly how dangerous the bikers are. She saw the results of their handiwork on her slab table. Not only that, she'd read/saw the Carcajou files on them. So what does she do? Runs headlong into their den with no back-up, on her own, without telling anybody endangering not only herself but people around her. Stupid much?

And I really do not like that. At all! It does not endear the main protagonist to me! And that also earned the character development's rating, a nose dive into the depths of the ocean. I wasn't so harsh in previous books' reviews maybe because I wasn't feeling too miffed. And maybe because Sergeant Detective Andrew Ryan wasn't too bad. Or the entire book just wasn't that annoying. Anyway, in this book, it had it!

Would I recommend this series? No. But I would recommend the Bones TV show.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 2.5
Character development = 1
Story itself = 2.5
Ending = 3
World building = 3.5
Cover art = 1.5
Pace = N/A (9 hours & 35 mins of listening time)
Plot = 3.5
Narrator = 4

Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 5 cherries

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

Review: DEJA DEAD

Déjà Dead by Kathy Reichs
Book 1 of the Temperance Brennan series
Read by Barbara Rosenblat
Genre: crime fiction
Format: ebook/paperback & audiobook

About Déjà Dead:

Forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan has finally planned a weekend off to explore Montreal. But when an unidentified female corpse is discovered meticulously dismembered and stashed in garbage bags, her weekend plans -- and her life -- are turned upside down.

Source: Info in the About Déjà Dead was taken from Goodreads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/231604.D_j_Dead on 18/02/2013.

Review:

Okey, I confess that the only reason that I picked this book up was because I am now a Bones TV series fan and waiting impatiently for Season 8 to become available in the UK. While waiting, why not read the book? So I already have David Boreanaz's image firmly in my head as Special Agent Seeley Booth, plus a serious crush on his character! I also expected this book to read very similarly to the pilot episode of Bones. I was pleasantly surprised that though it did read similarly to a Bones episode, it was not a Bones episode. There are distinct dissimilarities. I am glad of that because then it opens up to surprises. However, I could not quite marry the image of Sergeant Detective Luc Claudel with David Boreanaz. I don't know, for some reason it just don't match!! How silly is that! But there I was... slightly disappointed. David is more like Sergeant Detective Andrew Ryan. Maybe...

I love the way Barbara Rosenblat infused vivazz into the story with the way she reads compensating for the quality of her voice which to my ears is not as pleasant as Alyssa Bresnahan's nor Therese Plummer's. I also needed the paperback or the ebook to keep up with the story. It might be because of the French words because I don't understand French from Greek. Or it could be my unconscious way of telling myself that I needed a moment or two of lag time to digest the story. Or it could also be that I am now used to listening to an audiobook with a print copy at the same time. Whatever the reason, I needed the ebook/print copy to understand the audiobook, which is not a very encouraging sign. However, I do like the occasional humorous commentary between the pages. Humour never fails to pick me up!

The book series and the TV show has two main similarities and then it deviated from each other. One, the forensics similarity is just the idea of forensics and naught else. The forensics lab and team are totally different. Second, is the name Dr. Temperance Brennan. The Dr. Brennan in the Bones TV show is totally different to the book. The one in the book is too stupid to live (TSTL)! I prefer Emily Deschanel to the book... At the end of it, the book wasn't that bad, but it was a bit of a disappointment after the TV show.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 3
Character development = 1.5
Story itself = 3
Ending = 4
World building = 4
Cover art = 3
Pace = N/A (16 hours of listening time)
Plot = 3.5
Narrator = 3.5

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 cherries