Product Description

A plane crashes high in the mountains of North Carolina. But a severed foot is discovered a good distance from the main crash site...Forensic antrhopologiest Dr Temperance Brennan is first on the scene. The task that confronts her is a sad and sickening one, and her investigation seems to be throwing up more questions than it answers. But when Tempe makes a discovery that raises dangerous questions, her professional standing is threatened. Convinced that another corpse lies in the woods, Tempe pits herself against a conspiracy of silence, and uncovers a shocking tale of deceit and depravity...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8558 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Tempe Brennan, Kathy Reichs' forensic anthropologist heroine, often finds herself in physical jeopardy. In Fatal Voyage, her fourth outing, someone is trying to kill her and also to destroy her professional reputation with trumped-up charges of unethical behaviour.

Tempe is called in when a plane full of college athletes goes down in the remoter parts of the forests of North Carolina. She finds herself investigating a spare foot she rescued from coyotes, a foot which is significantly more decomposed than the crash victims and which has symptoms of gout, a disease most of the dead young people had no time to contract. There is a locked house and walled courtyard out in the woods that do not appear on any maps and it seems almost as if her simple knowledge of their being there has offended the powerful of the world.

As always, Kathy Reichs manages to combine a detailed knowledge of who the dead were and how they died with a profound sense of the sadness of things. This is a book that never lets us forget amid the dissections and tests for genetic markers that each human death is that of a tragic and irreplaceable human being. Tempe is one of the more attractive of the current crop of women detectives simply because she is flawed and vulnerable as well as smart, righteous and brave. Reichs never lets you forget that crime novels should acquaint us with good people as well as human evil. --Roz Kaveney

Review
Once again forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan is thrust into the centre of the action. This time set in America rather than Canada, the story focuses on a catastrophic plane crash. Caught travelling to a lecture, Tempe has to divert to the crash scene and report for business. Treading her way through the fragments of the crash site and what were once human beings, she strives to bring names to the remains to ease the victims families pain. During a respite from the traumatic findings she comes across a severed foot which she initially assumes comes from the crash. However, tests back at the morgue reveal the foot pre-dates the crash and opens up a whole can of worms for both Tempe and the people who want the matter hidden.. And so begins a story of secret societies, missing persons and forest hideaways, political intrigue and personal vendettas. Intermingled with the enquiry into the plane crash, the two stories twist and turn till the climactic ending in true Reich style. Tempe's complicated personal life simmers in the background, giving a human side to this gently self-mocking, professional woman. Reich's spine-tingling tension eventually emerges, with a tight, expert finish that will keep the reader both enthralled and in suspense till the final page. Written with Reich's personal experience of forensic pathology, the story is given the ring of veracity which makes this an even more compelling read. - Lucy Watson

Frances Fyfield
'Read this and you’ll know why the word ‘chiller’ was invented’

Customer Reviews

A holiday read or a stay at home read, but a must read !
Kathy Reich's forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan is back for her fouth time and is better than ever. Regular readers will enjoy the usual group of friends, family and cat. New readers will soon get to know these characters without feeling they have lost out by not having read Reichs previous novels.

The plot is initially centred on the site of a plane crash that Brennan is asked to attend, while salvaging remains of the crash site she is dragged into something a lot more sinister and complex than she or the reader could ever imagine. As well as trying to distance herself from the disaster for the sake of the families left behind by the tragedy, she also has to battle against a conspiracy to professionally discredit her.

Her old police ally and love interest Andrew Ryan is back on the scene as many sub plots weave around the main story line. Her cat Birdie also has a rival in the arrival of an orphaned dog, Boyd, a love/hate relationships develops.

The detailed descriptions of the technicalities used to establish the cause of the plane crash and other pathology references may be a little overwhelming, but as ever Tempe's story is gripping to the end.

Tempe Brennan to the rescue...again!
It is my mission to read all of Kathy Reichs novels- this was my third! I'm not big fan of blood and guts on tv but reading it doesn't seem so bad. In this one we find our heroine making her way back from a job adn called to another, an plane crash in the woods. Everything seems straight forward - how did the plane fall from the sky but an extra body part is found-the plot thickens! I couldn't put this book down - I was desperate to find out what was going to happen, then, it dawned on me that these novel all have the same pattern. In the last couple of chapters the guy catches up with Tempe Brennan, knocks her out, ties her up, she escapes, bad guy gets caught by police and the answer becomes clear to Tempe. There are no mega twists and nothing to take your breath away. But, all in all its a pretty good read and easy going.

very disappointing
I loved Kathy Reichs' first two novels, but found this one very disappointing. The forensics are very interesting, as always, but the storyline couldn't keep me interested, was drawn-out and confusing,and VERY anticlimactic by the end. Frankly, I'm getting pretty tired of the "professional discrediting" of the heroine that always seems to take place in these books. I long for the early days of the forensic pathologist genre... when the storyline was tight, without a million conspiracy subplots... My favorite is still "Postmortem" by Patricia Cornwall.