Hello Beautiful People! Welcome back to another Baddie Book Review! For the very first time on the site, I am posting the second book in a book series I’ve already reviewed. If you are interested feel free to check out my other review of Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs which is the first book in the series. https://baddiebookreviews.com/2023/09/20/deja-dead-by-kathy-reichs/
I will say I enjoyed the second book Death du Jour in the series so much better than the first, so let’s get into the review!
Main Characters:
- Temperance Brennan: Forensic Anthropologist for the province of Quebec, also teaches anthropology in Charlotte in this book
- Detective Andrew Ryan: Works with Tempe on many of the cases she runs into during this book
Some warnings for future readers
- Contains murder
- Contains physical and mental manipulation
- Contains murder and bodily destruction of children
My Review
When I reviewed the first book in the series I didn’t love it. I found it to be just an odd book that kind of presented Temperance in an unprofessional light. This book definitely did a better job I feel at presenting Temperance as she is, a smart, dedicated woman, who is passionate about her work and family. However, there were a few parts in this book that made me roll my eyes. I really loved all the hard work Kathy puts into describing the forensics piece when it comes to Tempe’s job. It makes the scenes so real and you feel like you are standing with her in the exam room. The descriptions are tough sometimes (gory) but overall it’s very scientific which I appreciate.
My biggest dislike and the reason it only got a 7/10 rating from me is that the book itself was a bit much. There were way too many characters, way too many dead people who don’t really connect but are supposed to, and way too many odd coincidences. I really couldn’t keep up with all the victims in the book and I felt like if we cut just a few it would have made the book way less confusing. I liked the idea behind the mystery itself I just wished it made a bit more sense in the middle. By the end, everything comes together but I spent way too long wondering “wtf is going on here?” I think this book definitely shows how Kathy was growing in her writing and just like the first I think it’s just going to get better from here.
We see a lot of growth from Temperance in this book in which she does a bit less of getting involved in things she doesn’t have business being in, she stayed in her lane a bit more in this one. I felt like she was kind of the empress of death in this book and just constantly had it following her wherever she went. We also get to meet Temperance’s sister, who I think Temperance could have bothered to be a bit nicer to in the book. I mean outwardly she’s nice but inside Temperance just seems like she wants to be rid of her. I am not sure if this is how Kathy means to present her but Temperance sometimes comes off really cold and then sometimes comes off warm. It’s really hard to tell who or when she will be like this but her feelings and emotions just sometimes seem so over the place.
A big theme in the book is that with Temperance’s sister’s arrival, she becomes jealous when her sister takes a liking to Detective Ryan. Tempe constantly gives Ryan the cold shoulder but as soon as her sister swoops in she gets all jealous. Like, girl pick a side! I get more into her and Ryan’s relationship in the summary/commentary portion but she finally does let her very rigid walls down a bit which was nice. We also get to see a bit more between Tempe and her daughter which was nice because that’s when her really soft side comes out. I felt like those parts definitely made her seem a bit more human and not this constant working machine. It’s clear though that she doesn’t have much of a life outside of her family because she tends to reach out to her ex-husband Paul and her daughter when she needs to talk. I guess her only friend died in the first book too so that would add to that.
The murders start when Tempe is looking at some old bones for a church in Quebec. She’s then sent to a house fire to look at some bones in Quebec. Then when she and Kate are on vacation in Texas she finds more bones, and then there are missing people she’s connected to in Texas and Quebec. I mean it was just very coincidental that all of these bones would be in the same places that Tempe is in, she found some of them, and they all seemingly have this connection. In the end, the connection makes sense and is kind of cool but I just felt like we didn’t need all of this to tell the inevitable story of the mystery. I think having this many murders and missing people, all of different ages and genders, and all these different places made it way too much and kind of made the mystery a drag once it all came together at the end.
I also will say I found it strange that in both the first and second book the mystery that Tempe is working on has people close to her involved in it, which again seems really odd. In this one her sister Harry gets thrown at the center of the mystery like Gabby did in the last. I kind of hope for the books going forward that this isn’t a factor anymore. It makes everything much less believable because how would she manage to be involved in different cases and have a personal connection as well? It just makes it seem like she’s really unlucky. It also takes away from the mystery because when the character has a personal involvement like this they tend to do stupid things or get overly emotionally involved. Tempe tends to do this anyway so she doesn’t need this extra connection added in.
Summary and Commentary
***Please be aware this section has spoilers***
We start off with Tempe looking to exhume the old bones of a nun Sister Elizabeth Nicolet. The church would like her bones exhumed because they would like to gather up any info on her for their history books. Tempe finds her bones and plans to bring them back to the lab with her to write a report for the church. As she plans to leave the church she gets a call that her assistance is needed at a house fire. They believe a family lived there, no one saw them leave the home, and there will be bones to examine if they were inside. Tempe of course dreads having to do this because she prefers old bones to new. The house fire is believed to be arson due to the smell of gas in the house. The house is completely destroyed by the fire. They find bodies of adults upstairs in the house and two empty cribs. This makes everyone wonder where the kids may be.
In the lab, Tempe finds out that one of the victims of the fire was an older woman who was shot in the head. It’s odd because it seems the victims and potential victims to come are all fairly inconspicuous, an old woman, a couple and their twins, nothing odd about it that would seemingly cause someone to want to attack them. When Tempe goes to look at the nun’s bones something about them is odd to her, but she doesn’t share what that is yet. Tempe calls the church to ask them if they have any further info on her birth and it seems they don’t have access to this information. Tempe finds out that there is a prof at the local university who could maybe answer some of her questions named Dr. Daisy Jeannotte or Jean. When Tempe meets Daisy it’s clear that she is beloved by her students but also feared by them. There is something weird about her but to be fair Tempe is also a bit weird and cold sometimes so I don’t feel like she’s one to judge. Daisy doesn’t have a ton of info for her but more so has the info where she can maybe find what she needs. Daisy is a prof in religious studies of sorts and she asks Tempe if she is a part of a religion. I thought this was strange but then again I find anyone asking anyone this question weird. When Tempe gets home from gathering some things to research she listens to her messages. One was from Ryan and he told her that he would be seeing her tomorrow because when they went to go investigate the house more they found four bodies. Two were children and two adults. Ryan said they weren’t burned and they found them in a weird spot. I felt so sad for this little family, any time kids are involved in the crimes in books it hits my heart a bit more.
When Tempe does the autopsy the next day the babies have had their hearts cut out. Ugh. I really love the Temperance Brennan books because I find the autopsy portions really interesting but ones like these are hard. You can’t help but imagine their little bodies lying on those exam tables. As silly and as rare as they actually are I wondered if this was some type of satanic cult thing going on because baby hearts? Really? What else could this be leading to? I think it’s also important to press though that violent satanic groups are extremely rare, so if this was one that would be weird. The next day Tempe gets a call from one of the nuns from the church where she got the bones. Sister Julienne calls Tempe because she is worried about her niece Anna who has recently gone missing. I found it weird that she called Tempe. Sister Julienne says that she and her sister called the police but that they can’t do anything until they haven’t heard from her for 48 hours since she’s an adult. Sister Julienne is in a panic and asks if Tempe can help in some way. The reality is she can’t but Tempe promises to make some calls. She gets turned down by everyone she calls. Daisy phones Tempe and tells her she has found some more info on Elisabeth’s family and that Tempe should come get it, and she agrees to. I guess Anna went to the school that Daisy works at and was studying in Daisy’s department. She’s able to meet someone who knows Anna and tells her that Anna is a strange person, and they heard she got mixed up in something bad. I just thought it was very coincidental that she was able to run into this person who knew this missing person and all of these things about her. This student tells Tempe that she joined a satanic cult so I guess I was really on my theory about it. How is it possible that Tempe just happens to always be involved in these things that connect just by chance, kinda weird?
Tempe asks Daisy about Anna and Daisy also seems to know all these weird things about her, like that she got in a fight with her mom and needed time to reflect. Like how odd. When Tempe gets back to the office Detective Ryan is there to chat with her about the bodies. They found out that the home was being rented and the neighbours seemed to think the family there was Belgium or something. The real reason he went there was to ask Tempe out for drinks. She gets all weird and blows him off despite kind of seeming like she likes him, but then changing that perspective two seconds later. Tempe’s sister Harry comes to her office to see her. Harry is from Charlotte so it’s weird she’s in Quebec. Harry is here because she’s doing some kind of wellness course on a different way of healing. The whole thing seems like it’s a pyramid scheme. She’s going to stay with Tempe while she’s taking her course. Tempe seems happy about it but also annoyed. It’s hard to get a grasp on how she really feels for her sister. She seems to judge all of her choices, and her lifestyle, but then also turns around and expects her sister to put up with her moodiness and coldness. Tempe seems often annoyed by Harry’s happiness and this shows when Harry meets Ryan. Ryan tells Tempe that the adults were filled heavily with drugs, but they can’t tell if the burned bodies were. There was no evidence in the home, still no way to tell who everyone was, and no weapon in the home. Everything is very hard to figure out at the moment.
When Harry finds out that Ryan asked Tempe out for drinks she of course is excited and pushes for them to go. Tempe of course acts like a stick in the mud and acts as though her sister is majorly unconvincing her by wanting her to take her out. They go out and Tempe acts grumpy because Harry flirts with Ryan and he flirts back. I mean all Tempe does is give this guy coldness, acts like she doesn’t like him, and is now expressing all this jealousy. This is one of the things I don’t love about her as a character, everything has to be by her rules. Harry wants to stay at the bar longer, and Tempe wants to leave. Ryan tries to convince her to let her walk her home, or get her a cab, and of course, she’s all mad that he flirted with Harry and says no. This ends up being a dumb decision because she ends up getting violently attacked while walking home. The attacker doesn’t steal anything but seems to want to just scare her, and for what reason she doesn’t know. Since this happened she of course worries about Harry going home by herself too, but at least Harry seems like the type of person to let someone walk her home/ call a cab. In the morning Tempe gets a call that the body of a young female has been found, and they wonder if it was the girl (Anna) that she was after. She finds out though that the body has some dental work done, and has a tattoo. When Tempe phones the Sister she says that Anna has none of these things, but will request Anna’s dental records be sent over nonetheless. It doesn’t end up being Anna which was nice, but also that means some other young girl was brutally murdered. The young woman was beaten, then hung by her hands and fed to animals. Ugh again. What a rough description to hear. Just made me so sad. Along with that, the young woman was pregnant.
Tempe goes to travel back to Charlotte (leaving Harry in Quebec by herself) to do some work and visit her family. It seems that Tempe and her ex-husband Pete have this really strange relationship. As the reader, it’s kind of confusing why they aren’t together anymore because they clearly seem to care for one another. They have this flirty happy relationship, and maybe it’s just like that because they aren’t together. When she’s at the university in Charlotte (she teaches there) she finds someone in her office which is weird. Nothing has been touched, but I wondered if this would come back again because this seemed like a random part to put in the book if it didn’t matter later. Ryan calls her from Quebec and shares that someone in the house where the fire happened was making a lot of calls to Beaufort South Carolina. I mean is it not lucky that now that she’s in the USA her Canada case has a connection to where she is? I mean look it made sense in terms of the story but it was weird to me that all of this stuff just seemed to be magically following Tempe around. It seems that the mother of the babies was remembered at a small mother-baby patient facility in Beaufort. She disappeared from there though before she gave birth and the clinic had no way to reach her. Ryan tries to convince her to come to Beaufort to help him do some investigative work there but she says no. I mean Tempe always jumps to do these things without being asked but now that she’s being asked she’s like nah. Or it’s just cause she’s all mad at Ryan.
Ryan goes behind her back and gets the officials to convince her to help him. Tempe and her daughter Katy go on a weekend trip to this island that Tempe’s friend owns. The island is a monkey rescue so it’s an interesting place to be. While there a monkey literally drops a skull into Tempe’s lap. I rolled my eyes a bit at this I won’t lie. Is this other body supposed to be connected to the fire, the young woman who was found dead, and potentially Anna? There was just a lot going on and at this point, I had totally forgotten about the freaking nun bones as well. Like what is going on here? Why are there so many bodies in random places, but places Tempe always is? Or is it just she’s just finding these bodies everywhere she goes and it’s just she hasn’t been anywhere else and that’s why she hasn’t found more? Look I was just confused and I wished we had about 2 or 3 fewer dead bodies at this point.
When Tempe and Ryan meet up in the US Ryan makes a comment to her that these things seem to be following her which I found funny. At least Kathy is aware that this is all very weird. Tempe and Ryan follow the number out to this compound in the middle of nowhere. A group of people live there and they seem very closed off and in their own world. They don’t use phones so the first person they spoke to wasn’t very understanding about the calls. They meet a man named Dom who seems to be the leader of this group. Dom is passive on their questions and seems to do a good job at avoiding them. They aren’t really able to get much from him and leave the compound. It’s clear that it is some type of cult-like group, but they can’t really tell what the group’s deal is. When the two stop to have some lunch they recognize one of the women from the compound named Katheryn who is with her baby. They convince Katheryn to talk with them a bit and learn that they are some type of very odd holistic group. Katheryn grew up at the compound as her parents are members. Katheryn knows Hedi and Brian (the murdered parents from the house fire) and is horrified to learn of their murder and their children’s murder. A weird woman named El is with Katheryn and she seems to be some type of Elder from the compound and keeps making comments about how death isn’t that serious. She gave me weird vibes for sure. Ryan and Tempe feel like she’s hiding things but can’t get her to open up much more with El around.
Ryan and Tempe have some supper and go over the case. Ryan starts massaging her out of the blue and it was just so odd to me, I just wasn’t expecting it. The two get heated after the massage and almost the deed. I mean I was glad for Tempe because I honestly felt like she really released some steam that way. I wondered if she actually liked Ryan though or just did it with him because this meant that he obviously liked her more than her sister. They didn’t go all the way because Katheryn tried to call Tempe while they were getting it on, but they missed the call. The two go back to the compound in the morning and are met with more strange behaviour from the people there. Weirdly Katheryn is missing from the compound but Dom gives Tempe some weird excuse, not knowing she had talked with her before. They leave the compound not knowing much more than they did before. Ryan pulls a little move on Tempe and tells her that last night wasn’t just a one-time thing for him and that he liked her, which I thought was sweet!
We still don’t know at this point if Anna is alive, who the bones on the island were (they were women but that’s about as much as they could figure out), who killed the family, and what was going on at the compound. Lota questions. On top of that now that Katheryn chick is missing and Harry has apparently disappeared from Quebec! Like what the hell? It was all a lot for me and I was definitely getting lost. Did all of these things really connect? That night in Tempe’s apartment it seems like someone has killed her cat and thrown the body through a window in her house. I am the kind of person who doesn’t react at all to a dead human in a movie but will cry at a dead animal so this part got to me. This of course breaks Tempe’s heart and I would have reacted the exact same way she did if it was me. She just cries her eyes out and I respect it. Jumping a bit ahead but I feel like it’s relevant here, Birdie her cat actually ends up being alive. It seems like someone was able to get into her home or see into her home, see what Birdie looks like, let him out, and then murder a look alike. If I am being honest this made no sense. I mean I am glad her cat wasn’t actually dead but why would someone go through so much effort to scare her? And why didn’t they just kill her cat, I mean they clearly had no qualms about doing it since they killed another, it just wasn’t her cat. Attached to the dead cat it says next time it won’t be a cat. Obviously, someone isn’t happy with what Tempe is sticking her nose in and I assumed it was the cult.
Tempe calls a prof friend of hers the next day to ask about if the cat murder could be something a cult would do, and how they even find members in the first place. She essentially learns that people like Anna and her sister are perfect candidates. Tempe and Ryan inspect the bones from the island in the lab and find out that they were most likely young women. Dom doesn’t have a record or anything weird following his name which makes it hard to find out if anything odd is going on at his cult. I mean it seems like the whole knot to this story is all of these dead people are involved in Dom’s cult somehow, but it seems odd that his cult is so close to home for Tempe in so many different places. They have some suspicions about the guy who owns the land the compound is on but I assumed he would have nothing to do with it.
Katheryn weirdly shows up at Tempe’s home, and it’s obviously weird because Tempe questions how she would have known her address. Tempe finds out from Katheryn that Dom runs this compound by picking baby-making partners for his people. Hedi was supposed to have a baby with someone else other than Brian. Then Katheryn drops that Anna was also at the compound but disappeared. Why would this cult have so many connections to Tempe it’s just so strange, or I guess maybe Tempe just surrounds herself with people who love cults. Katheryn says something about Dom planning for eternal life which seems like some Jim Jones crap to me. It seems like Dom is a control freak and he controls his people by being a divine matchmaker. He knows who is supposed to be together and if you go against what he declares then maybe he won’t be so happy with you. Katheryn sneaks out of Tempe’s home later that day and Tempe is obviously pissed because she worries she went back to the cult and if Dom plans to kill everyone it may not go well for her, but her baby was also back at the compound so it would make sense she went back there.
Tempe’s nephew (Harry’s son) calls her out of concern that he hasn’t heard from Harry in a while. Tempe kind of blows him off but also is a bit concerned considering what Harry is getting into. There was no reason to think she was involved in the cult but the things she talked about from her courses were similar to what they talked about at the compound. When Ryan calls Tempe to tell her about the warrant on the compound he tells her that it was deserted, which is not a good sign. Tempe finds out from Harry’s son that the course she was in actually wasn’t a course and Tempe worries that she got pulled in by the cult, lied because she worried Tempe would judge, and is now in deep. If that’s the case that’s quite the coincidence, and again why is this cult half in Quebec and half in the Carolinas? Just seems so odd. Tempe and Ryan return to Quebec to see if the cult went there and if Tempe can find Harry. Tempe can’t find Harry and becomes worried. Tempe goes to the university to talk to Daisy (I was still confused about what her connection to all of this was) and freaking Anna is there, just acting rosey like nothing happened. Tempe finds out that one of the other bodies from the island was another student who Anna knew, and she was also involved in the cult. Anna doesn’t say much else but Tempe questions her if Daisy is involved in all of this (recruiting?) and Anna kind of ducks the question, sort of making it seem like she is in some way.
Daisy comes to Tempe’s home that night (so clearly she is involved?) and tells her to stop bugging her students. Yeah, she’s definitely involved in some way. Then she threatens her before leaving essentially giving away that she’s involved with this cult. I wondered though if she was maybe leading it. Tempe calls Ryan to tell him what happened. Tempe’s nephew calls her and tells her that he missed a call from Harry and she seemed like she was in a panic. The ending for me was kind of boring and felt a bit rushed. Tempe and Ryan find out where the cult is and the women are dying for the exact reason they suspected. They tried to go against Dom’s partnership plans, or left the group, and he had them killed because of it. He saw their actions as punishable and he was the one who decided who would get punished. Tempe finds Harry magically and she’s all drugged out. They are able to take down Dom and save the cult participants from Dom’s plan to kill them all. Daisy’s connection to the whole thing is she was a recruiter the whole time because her brother is Dom. She knew about the cult and would convince some of her students to join. El was the real leader the whole time Dom was just the one who presented as the leader. Then we find out the whole secret with Sister Elizabeth (the damn bones that started the whole book) is that she was mixed race, and was adopted as a child. I wondered what the whole point of Tempe investigating her was in the first place or if it was just a way to connect her to Anna.
All in all, I enjoyed this book a lot more than the first one, but this one was definitely a bit more hectic and messy than the first. Just way too many dead people who really don’t have any connection, and they are in all these different places. I also do hope that in the next book, Tempe doesn’t have so many personal connections to the cases. It just kind of seems repetitive, and while I don’t like comparing the book and the TV show, the thing I liked about the show is that Tempe works hand in hand with the upper authorities and just works on cases, the cases don’t just find her. I think coincidences like this are fine in one book but yeah just going forward I hope this doesn’t happen a bunch more. I mean it seems like Tempe doesn’t have many people left to be dragged into the mystery so I have hopes that we move on from this way of having her brought into the mystery. I am definitely excited to check out the third book.
Thank you so much for checking out this review and I hope you enjoyed it! Have you checked out this series before, or just this book? What did you think? Feel free to check out all my socials @baddiebookreviews to be kept up to date for when a new review drops!
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