Death Du Jour

The second book in Kathy Reichs' Temperance Brennan series follows Dr. Brennan as she tries to make sense of the bones of a hoped saint, a young family with twin baby boys, a woman in her seventies, a young woman who was a prostitute who was four months pregnant, two young women found on an island that is now a monkey sanctuary, a missing young woman, and there could possibly a cult that has to do with all of this. Tempe has her hands full and this isn't counting the fact that her sister Harry has recently split up with her third or fourth husband, her ex-husband makes some come ons, her cat goes missing and she thinks that Birdie might be dead, and Detective Andrew Ryan keeps getting more and more attractive by the minute. Death Du Jour does not let the reader settle down and think about what is going on for even a minute.
The nun Elisabeth is the starting point for this novel, Dr. Brennan is trying to find the grave of this young nun who selflessly tried to point the health authority in the right direction during an epidemic of the flu or smallpox or something like that. She was pensive and solitary and wrote many letter to th health authority telling them to keep people out of churches but of course this didn't happen. She nursed many people through this epidemic and is thus thought well of in Quebec. She's possibly thought of for sainthood or that seems to be what the priest and the Sisters of the Order there are thinking. They are putting her up there anyway. They do find the grave and they do find her but things aren't exactly what they seem once they get back to the lab. I'm not going to give away the secret here but hmmm, she's in the convent for a reason. Let's put it that way!
Shortly after freezing for hours, Brennan is called to a house fire where a young family has been burnt or so they think. They haven't found the bodies yet and when they do, it's not what it seems. Shockingly, the find the body of an older woman in the basement and she did not die in the fire; she was shot. Dun dun dun! The babies are missing wherever they have gotten to. Brennan starts to think about the woman in the basement but she also wants to go back to the Nun and what may have happened to her. She goes to McGill to find out what she can about the family of Elisabeth; there she meets a professor, Dr. Daisy Jeannotte who is involved with the Religious Studies department. Known as Daisy Jean for her connection with her students, Brennan finds her strangely cold and unwilling in really help. She also has a twitchy assistant that goes by the name of Anna, who later comes into it again. Because Anna is missing either the next day or the day after that and Brennan realizes this because one of the Nuns that was assisting her with the Elisabeth issue, tells Brennan that her niece is missing. Slowly the pieces come together and Brennan realizes that it's Anna.
She reports it to one of her favourite people in the world, Claudel, and then another body turns up that just might be Anna but it's not. It's a young prostitute and she has been killed in a gruesome way, dogs and scalding, I believe. It's not something that you want to hear about really. Most deaths in Kathy Reichs' books are pretty gruesome, much like the show Bones; which of course is based very, very, very loosely on the books. Though I love both! However, I'm off topic because that's what I do.
Brennan's sister Harry turns up and she's involved with some enlightenment class/course and she ends up flirting with Ryan because...that's what she does and it causes all kinds of issues because Brennan has a thing for him that she's not admitting. Brennan goes back to the South or "Dixie" as many characters like to call it.
Let's sum it up, more deaths, lots of sexual tension, and a whole lot of crazy that has to do with a cult! If you want to figure out how every death, except the Nun's, comes to pass, you better read the book because I can't summarize it. Not really. I mean look above ^; is not good! However, everything is connected and there might be nearly some bow chicka wow wow for Brennan and Ryan who I want to call Booth but he's not Booth, he's an awesome Nova Scotia boy! I think this book is slightly predictable in the mystery/thriller sense because you go through the motions with them. I didn't figure out who had actually done it, that's not the way that I meant it. It brings you through processes and since Reichs is a Forensic Anthropologist herself, she does know a lot and she brings you through many processes to get you to the solution. It's a good book! Me, I like a book that revolves around a creepy cult in the same way that I like watching 19 Kids and Counting on TLC. It's just fascinating. Murder and Cults; ah you've found my weakness. Plus I want to see how it's going to move from the point where it is, to where I know it goes with Ryan. Call me crazy but I love the way that they work together and what they have going on. Sexual tension at it's finest and it's never perfect. Reichs' does a really good job on this book and every one that I have read from her. I really like them and I'm reading the next book Deadly Decisions so that will tell ya!
This was read via scribd.com and it's an amazing site for someone like me because I have many, many books for my many many moods! And back to my loving books too much, I updated my Anne of Green Gables books, not hardcover, but still a new copy! I'm sure to love them too much as well!

EDITED: Cause I'm not the brightest crayon in the box; I give this book 8 Irish Folk Songs out of 10!