Monday Mourning: A Tempe Brennan Novel

C'est le premier livre de Reichs que je lis en VO. Et bien, c'est encore pire que la VF (dans le bon sens), je me suis fait peur moi-même en lisant le livre, je ressentais les angoisses, les craintes (mais aussi les joies) de Tempe. Il n'y a pas à dire, Kathy Reichs est la reine du thriller. Pour le livre lui-même, sans en dire trop, c'est un peu Tempe seule contre tous. Elle est persuadée que les squelettes que l'on a retrouvés dans la cave d'une pizzeria sont récents (et non d'un autre siècle). Et la machine infernale s'enclenche. Et tout cela parce que Claudel fidèle à lui-même ne fait absolument pas confiance à Tempe !

テンペランス・ブレナンシリーズ第７作目。 まだまだテンペの勢いは衰えず、最後までハラハラドキドキしながら読み進めます。 今回はピザパーラーの地下から若い女性の遺骨三体が発見されるところから話は始まります。 骨だけだと、いつのものなのかを推定するのが大変なのを改めて実感。 今回はクローデルたちと一緒に仕事を進めていくので、ライアンはなかなか登場しません。 でも、ライアンとの関係で揺れる女心も相変わらず、でこちらもハラハラドキドキ･･･ あんまり登場しないライアンですが、うわさで彼が美女と一緒にいた、なんてあったりして どうなるのかな、と展開が気になって、一気に読んでしまいました。 面白かったです。

I enjoyed this book, but I hate how female crime solvers have to prove their courage and independence by rushing headlong into danger where angels fear to tread. Dr. Brennan should be dead multiple times at this point in the series. Part of me hopes the idiotic rushing in to solve a murder of someone else is a literary device used to show the dichotomy of her inability to communicate or confront anyone in her personal life. While Brennan will rush in to save a stranger, she can't ask her former lover, "what's going on?", she just assumes the worst. She also can't be bothered to take more than a passive interest in her friend. I like the books, but I think I need to create a bookshelf for "female crime solvers who are their own worst enemy"!

Great! Follows the timeliness

I admit that I have struggled with Kathy Reichs in the past. I know others have rated her highly and compared her to Patricia Cornwell, but I failed to see any comparison. Reichs' failings, I felt, lay in her plotting and dialogue. Her characters always seemed very one-dimensional and uninviting, even though she had come up with some promising storylines. Reichs' previous efforts have, to me at least, been very artificial and amateur, clunky and awkward. However, with Monday Mourning Reichs has transformed herself. Her characters suddenly have depth and believability; better, their dialogue has become life-like as the author has discovered (or uncovered) her ability to write funny, sardonic, sarcastic and sometimes ironic lines for her characters to deliver. Suddenly, I found that I laughed out loud at odd points when reading. Not real belly laughs as you get with Tom Sharrpe, but nonetheless some very witty moments to be enjoyed. The plot is good. It is almost beleivable (I'm still not totally convinced about forensic anthropologists being called in so early in investigations) and we can see why the heroine, Brennan, has been involved. We see her struggle with the sheer evil that confronts her in this book. Indeed, the evil that is the main story in the book will take your breath away when it's uncovered. So, all in all, a much improved writer showing some real skill at last.