Book 5 of 2012: Death Du Jour

Having decided to lay off the fantasy books a little bit this year, I've restocked my bookshelf with crime books. This has led to a reread of the Kathy Reichs Temperance Brennan series. I read the first one towards the end of last year and I'm continuing to make my way through them.
The second book in the series is Death Du Jour and I first read it in about two days when I was travelling to and from Uni many years ago. I came to the books after the TV series and love them both separately. I've read most of the series before, bar the last three which I've either not owned until recently, or did own but was holding off rereading until I could reread the whole series.

This photo actually shows the space where this book should be on my bookshelf.

One of my favourite things about these books is the cliffhanger endings to the chapters. They build up to some shocking revelation, only to hold it back until the next chapter. And most of the time it's not on the first page of the new chapter, so you can't just turn over and take a glance before you put the book down for the night. It's impossible to just read one chapter because invariably something happens, or some piece of evidence comes in, and 'just one more' becomes several more and one for luck.

Normally I sail through these books quite quickly, however I've noticed with both this one and Deja Dead, I've been reading much slower. I think it's largely because this is about my third or fourth reading of them and I already know who did it. That's the main problem with rereading crime books. You know more than the characters do and it's frustrating.

I love the fact that these books are a little bit dated now in terms of the technology available. Tempe (the narrator) explains things like the University email system and having mobile phones is a novelty. Of course, my other love is the Tempe/Ryan romance. I remember getting to page 257 the first time I read the book just as I was pulling into the train station and rushing to finish it before I had to put it away. I am such a hopeless shipper.

It's a bit tricky to find quotes in the book though. They're just not the sort of books that lend themselves to being readily quoteable. They're good reading material for a few nights and are generally a quick read. Plus they're small and fit nicely into my bag to take to work.

"I turned to face him, to pull the plug, and our eyes met. Ryan hesitated a moment, then cupped my face in both his hands and pressed his lips to mine."

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