Fatal Voyage by Kathy Reichs
Temperance Brennan Series
Simon and Schuster, - July 2001
ISBN: 0684859726 -Hardcover
Suspense / Forensic Pathology explicit content

Reviewed by Beverly J. Rowe, MyShelf.com
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In this fourth Temperance Brennan story, Tempe is recruited into the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT) to investigate a plane crash in North Carolina. It's grueling, mind bending work. In one scene that challenges the imagination and stretches belief a good deal, Tempe retrieves a human foot from a coyote. It turns out that the foot belonged to an elderly male who was dead long before the plane crash occurred.

When Tempe is fired from DMORT shortly after finding the foot, and questioning it's relevance to the plane crash, she is sure that someone does not want her to get any closer to the truth, and it may be the Lieutenant Governor of the State. Then her life is threatened.

Kathy Reichs is a forensic anthropologist, so her accurately depicted forensic details add considerable interest to her writing, although some readers are turned off by the gruesomeness of these scenes where she describes the smell and look of death. The characters are believable, and some are returning characters from previous Brennan stories. I loved her newest character; Boyd, the dog, but I do wish she would make up her mind about her feelings toward her ex-husband Pete and co-worker Andrew Ryan.

I have trouble keeping track of the many organizations that are referred to only by initials after the first introduction of them. (DMORT, MCME, NTSB...now what did that mean?)

The multi-layered suspense filled plot keeps you guessing from the very first page, and up all night. If fast moving thrillers are your cup of tea, I highly recommend this one.