Death Du Jour; A Novel

by Kathy Reichs

• ISBN13: 9780671043704
• ISBN10: 0671043706
• Edition: Abridged
• Format: Audio CD
• Copyright: 1999-06-01
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Summary

Assaulted by the bitter cold of a Montreal winter, the American-born Dr. Temperance Brennan, Forensic Anthropologist for the Province of Quebec, digs for a corpse where Sister Elisabeth Nicolet, dead for over a century and now a candidate for sainthood, should be lying 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 Nicolet'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? And where are the children?

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 sociologist, a mysterious commune, and a primate colony on a Carolina island.

Featuring the kind of forensic detail that only Kathy Reichs can provide -- from skeletal reconstruction to insect analysis -- Death du Jour takes the reader on a riveting journey from the morgue to the lab to the crime scene, from the warmth of a barrier island to the frigid cold of a deadly ice storm. With this poignant and powerful work, Kathy Reichs confirms her status as a brilliant new crime-writing star.

Author Biography

Kathy Reichs is forensic anthropologist for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, State of North Carolina, and for the Laboratorie des Sciences Judiciaires et de Medecine Legale for the province of Quebec. She is one of only fifty forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology and is on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. A professor of anthropology at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Dr. Reichs is a native of Chicago, where she received her Ph.D. at Northwestern. She now divides her time between Charlotte and Montreal and is a frequent expert witness in criminal trials. She is the author of Deja Dead, winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel of 1997.