Product Description

Violence is escalating, and spilling onto the streets of Montreal. A nine-year-old girl is killed in crossfire on her way to ballet class. The body of a teenager killed in North Carolina is found hundreds of miles away. Forensic anthropologist Dr Temperance Brennan has to pick up the pieces: she knows she shouldn't let emotion get in the way, but when nin-year-old Emily's body is wheeled into the morgue she cannot help but react. An exhumation uncovers the bones of another inocent in a clandestine grave close to a biker gang headquarters. With her boss in hospital and sparring partner Detective Andrew Ryan mysteriously unavailable, Tempe alone begins a perilous investigation into the lawless underworld of organised crime...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8410 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Kathy Reichs' forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan is arguably the best of the current crop of thriller pathologists--quiet in her desire to avenge the helpless and coldly clinical in her intelligence. Her third outing, Deadly Decisions, pits her reconstructive skills against a bunch of Hell's Angels with a taste for ultra-violence. She pieces together the jigsaw fragments of identical twins and she finds herself engaged in identifying the teenage girl whose skull and long bones turned up near the grave of some earlier victims of inter-gang strife. In addition to the usual fascinating material about the identification of human bones, Reichs tells us all about the way that biker gangs have become a serious part of the criminal underworld, a subculture with a taste for mayhem and with rules it is death to break. This tactful abridgement for audio includes all the details one could wish of Tempe's gruesome trade, but not at the expense of her bad hair days, her irritating nephew and the rest of her messy private life. Katherine Borowitz's quiet characterisation brings us close to the cool intense delicacy of Reichs's character, without ever quite becoming so quiet as to be monotonous. --Running time approx 5 hours --Roz Kaveney

Amazon.co.uk Review
Kathy Reichs' forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan is arguably the best of the current crop of thriller pathologists; her third outing, Deadly Decisions, pits her reconstructive skills against a bunch of Hell's Angels with a taste for ultra-violence. Hardly has she pieced together the jigsaw fragments of identical twins, before she finds herself engaged in identifying the teenage girl whose skull and long bones turned up near the grave of some earlier victims of inter-gang strife. Her sweetheart Ryan is under investigation for corruption; her nephew is sleeping on the sofa and showing an unholy fascination with bikes and bikers; and Tempe is having a series of really bad hair days. In addition to the usual fascinating material about the identification of human bones, Reichs tells us all about the way in which biker gangs have become a serious part of the criminal underworld, a subculture with a taste for mayhem and with rules it is death to break. Tempe is on her usual brittle good form--a woman torn between her cold clinical intelligence and a crusading desire to avenge the helpless that regularly brings her into conflict with more quietly committed colleagues. This is an excellent thriller that combines real intelligence with a radical social anger. --Roz Kaveney

About the Author
Kathy Reichs is forensic anthropologist for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, State of North Carolina, and for the Laboratorie de Sciences Judiciaires et de Medecine Legale for the province of Quebec. She is one of only fifty-six forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Antrhopology, and served on the Executive Committee of 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, hwere she received her Ph.D at Northwestern. She divides her time between Charlotte and Montreal, and is a frequent expert witness in criminal trials.

Customer Reviews

A Breath of Fresh Air
Kathy Reichs’s creation of Temperance Brennan is a mirror image of the author herself. Reichs is a forensic anthropologist for the state of North Carolina and the province of Quebec, Canada. Deadly Decisions is the third book in a series that constitutes what I would call a great summer read.

Temperance Brennan is called away from Quantico when a young girl named Emily Anne becomes an innocent victim in an escalating war of biker gangs such as the Hell’s Angels over turf in Canada. This has prompted the formation of a special operations unit called Caracajou Temperance is asked to join. Once she does, she learns in heartbreaking fashion how the sophisticated network of this new mafia uses some very old and horrifying methods to keep control.

Reichs writes Brennan as a classy professional who has overcome a drinking problem in her past, and though widely respected in her field, has at best a respectful relationship with the stuffy French detective named Claudel she often works with. But Reichs weaves these details in to fit the crime story instead of the other way around, as Cornwell often does, making this an involving read.

The story itself is full of atmosphere and as the body of a second girl is discovered, buried years before, Reichs is at her best. There is a tense excitement colored with sadness at the careful excavation of a body so badly decomposed only her bones and the mystery of who killed her are left for Temperance to uncover.

There are touching real life moments such as the releasing of balloons at Emily Anne’s funeral and an understanding by the author of how violence often occurs suddenly and without time to mourn that separates this book from others, giving it the depth missing in others of its ilk.

This is a classy read in a genre that has gone astray. Author Kathy Reichs imbues Temperance Brennan with professionalism and humanity, all the while staying focused on the crimes and the victims. She fleshes out Temperance into a real person we would want on our side in such circumstances. This is a series that seems to have found solid ground and is well worth checking out.

Disappointing Sequel No.1
Readers of Reichs two previous novels will undoubtably feel disappointed, and possibly cheated, by this second rate sequel. Having thoroughly enjoyed the plots and characters of Deja Dead and Death du Jour, I found Deadly Decisions tedious and shallow. The biker theme never really seemed to take off albeit being the foremost story line in the book.

As for Ryan mysteriously disappearing into the bowels of the biker fraternity - why? Obviously Dissapointing Sequel No 2 is in the pipeline.

Tempe's anthropological background appears lost among the dull discussion of the many Harley riding, gun toting, drug dealing groups - all of which made the book increasing complicated to follow for the non-biker initiated among us.

Generally I am a fan of the crime/thriller genre, however I found Deadly Decisions had too many (sub) plots, all of which were never really developed, leaving the reader wanting an extra chapter or two to fill in the blanks.

Although I won't give up hope that Dissapointing Sequl No 2 never materialises!

A Great Read Start to (Almost End)
I started reading Kathy Reichs when a friend brought Deja Dead backfrom a trip to SA. Since then I have been hooked.

The thing that makes Deadly Decisions my favorite though is that I couldn't put it down (doing damage to by sleep patterns). The other two, whilst being great books, took a little time to get into and were hard going in places. This one I just read start to end in about 4 midnight sittings.

The only thing that let the book down though was the ending - it was predictable and hence only 4 stars. But over all still a great book. I shal be reading it over and over like her other books and can't wait for another.