Fatal Voyage by Kathy Reichs (Temperance Brennan #4)

Hello beautiful people! Welcome to a new review! For this review, I continue on my journey tackling the Temperance Brennan series by Kathy Reichs. Getting into the fourth book Fatal Voyage I was hopeful that this book would have some differing aspects from the things I didn’t like in the first three. While it did to a degree, sadly a lot of the factors I was critical about for the first three books do occur in this one as well. I think thus far #4 and #3 are the better. Of course, there is a lot of room for improvement so I am sure things get better in the continuing books.

Main Characters:

• Temperance Brennan: In this book Temperance is investigating a large-scale plane crash in which all passengers on board died while in North Carolina, is heavily thrust into the investigation not as a part of the team but as a suspect of sorts, dealing with extreme hostility from the local police who accuse her or handling the investigation inappropriately and doing suspicious things, Temperance is forced to work this one from the outside when it seems like things may be getting covered up
• Detective Andrew Ryan: Arrives at the plane crash in the USA where Temperance is because he’s Jean Bertrand’s previous partner and he was on the plane transporting a prisoner for trial, it’s good that he’s there because due to he and Temperance’s prior relationship knows she didn’t do the things she is being an accused of and helps her find the truth

My Review

I feel like I just have to say this off the jump, I don’t hate this series. I feel like sometimes it may come off that way but I have really enjoyed the Temperance Brennan series so far. I think my issue is I see the potential for it to be better. Given that this series has like 22 books in it I know that it does get better, but I have had trouble with getting into the series so far based on some things that go on in the first few books. Fatal Voyage by Kathy Reichs was definitely tamer on the things that I didn’t like about the first books but still has a lot of those aspects in it. I also didn’t love the mystery in this one. I was really pulled in during the first half but for me, it got super confusing and weird as the book went on.

I landed on giving Fatal Voyage a 6.5/10 rating. I enjoyed it more than books #1 and #2 but I enjoyed the mystery a bit more in book #3. In Fatal Voyage Temperance is in North Carolina working at the university. She is requested to come help with a plane crash that was transporting hundreds of civilians in which there were no survivors. The reason for the crash is unknown but all that is known is that there are a lot of dead bodies, and dismembered body parts, that need to have a name to them. At the crash site, Temperance wanders off as she does and finds a dismembered foot. What she does not know however is that this foot will cause her a world of pain. After finding the foot Temperance is accused of not following protocol, wandering into an area she shouldn’t have with no supervision, and just managed to find this dismembered foot. The bigger issue? The foot doesn’t belong to anyone on the plane. Accused of having something to do with the foot, or knowing who does, Temperance must find out where the foot came from to clear her name. After it is shared with the media what she has done, and how she has caused issues to the investigation she finds herself on the outside and none of her colleagues other than Detective Andrew Ryan will help her. Assuming some kind of conspiracy or cover Temperance needs to find out what the local police are hiding and why.

In the past, I have been critical about two particular things with the series. One is that in every case/mystery, Temperance somehow manages to have some connection in the case with her position in America where she is originally from, and Canada where she also works. The second is that in every case she somehow manages to have a personal connection to it whether is a friend or colleague that is somehow affected by or somehow involved with the crime/criminal. In this book, we get a bit of a double whammy. So, the case itself is in North Carolina where she is from. Somehow an old colleague and partner of her fling Andrew Ryan, Jean Bertrand just so happens to be on this plane picking up a prisoner… when he is an officer from Canada, right got it that makes total sense. This allows Andrew Ryan to show up where Temperance is and get involved in what she is doing because he is Bertrand’s past partner. Now, I will say that this is better than how it’s been in other books. In the past three, these personal connections that Temperance always manages to have to the case is a bit of an eye roll. At least with this one it kind of makes sense, but it’s still weird that this small connection allowed Ryan to get to be so involved in the case. At the start of the book it seemed like maybe Temperance’s daughter would be involved more when she panics after finding out the university her daughter goes to soccer’s team was on the plane. I guess she was on the team or something at some point? I don’t know it was weird and just kind of got dropped once she talked to her daughter and found out that she was fine. I mean I get why Kathy maybe needed to do this with Bertrand so Ryan could be there but given how this is such a pattern in the books, I just didn’t like it.

At the start of the book I really enjoyed the suspense and thrill that came with the setting and the crash that Temperance was inspecting. It originally seems like the book is going to revolve around this crash but really the focus comes more around this foot that Temperance finds away from the crash site. I just felt like the plane crash gets so lost in the book, and the way the crash is concluded is such an eye-roll. I just felt like it was rashly closed so we could focus more on the foot and who was attached to it, but I was enjoying the crash more. I don’t know if that makes me terrible or something but it’s like you have a book that has a plane crash, and then a foot that’s found that isn’t connected to the crash. I mean it feels obvious that you would be more pulled into the crash. The foot is interesting as a subplot, but not as the whole thing. I would love to know what other people who read the book thought and if they had similar feelings to me.

Overall Fatal Voyage by Kathy Reichs isn’t a bad read, but it wasn’t a favourite. We don’t get much in terms of character progression or anything so it doesn’t feel like a book that is definitely needed to read to keep up with the series.

Have you read Fatal Voyage by Kathy Reichs or any of the other books in the Temperance Brennan series? What did you think?

Thank you for checking out this review! I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to follow me on my socials @baddiebookreview to be kept up to date for when I release a new review.