Backbreaking work (novel)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

' Bony work (original title Death du Jour ) is the second detective novel by the US author Kathy Reichs from 1999. The novel is about the forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance "Tempe" Brennan, who lives alternately in Montreal , Canada , and in Charlotte , North Carolina , USA , and supports the local police in both locations in identifying heavily decomposed and burned corpses. In backbreaking work , Tempe is involved in a multitude of homicides: the murder of seven people and arson in St. Jovite, Quebec, a body with bite marks on the Île de Soers in Montreal and two female corpses near Beaufort , South Carolina . As it turns out, these murders are all linked because they stem from the activities of a sect that punishes dissenters with death. The plot finally culminates in a branch of the sect, where Tempe and her colleague Andrew Ryan, with the help of the local police, succeed in stopping the sect and preventing them from committing mass suicide. In parallel to these murders, Tempe is also working on a historical case, the exhumation of a nun who is about to be canonized .

The novel Death du Jour is the second novel in the crime series about Temperance Brennan by Kathy Reichs. The character of Temperance Brennan also served as the inspiration for the TV series Bones, which is loosely based on it .

content

Dr. Temperance "Tempe" Brennan, forensic anthropologist and consultant for the Laboratoire de Médicine Légale in Montreal, has been commissioned by the Catholic Church to exhume and identify sister Élisabeth Nicolet in the nunnery of Notre-Dame de l'Immaculée-Conception. Nicolet lived in the 19th century and is said to be canonized. As the exhumation of Nicolet is just completed, Tempe is called to a crime scene in St. Jovite, a small town near Quebec . A house burned down there and Tempes’s expertise is needed in identifying severely burned bodies. During the search of the burned down house, a total of seven bodies are found, including two babies, twins, whose hearts were cut out. A woman's body is also found in the basement of the house. While examining her body, Tempe discovers that it is an old woman and that she was shot in the head before the house fire. Another murder Tempe is involved in is a body with bite marks that was found on the Île des Soers.

In parallel with the St. Jovite case, Tempe continues to work on the exhumed body of Elisabeth Nicolet, which she has yet to identify. When Tempe has unanswered questions while examining the corpse, she wants to do more detailed research on the life of Elizabeth Nicolet and her time and is referred to Daisy Jeannotte, Professor of Religious Studies at McGill University . When Tempe visits Jeannotte, she also asks some questions about a student: One of the nuns, Sister Julienne, has asked Tempe for help because her niece Anna Gayotte, a student at McGill, has disappeared. Tempe received some materials from Jeannotte, but she later added a few copies from 19th century newspapers to those materials to understand the story of the Nicolet family. About Anna Gayotte she only hears a few assumptions from her fellow students that she might be in a sect-like community.

While Tempe is still working on her cases, she is unexpectedly visited by her sister Harry. Harry is recently separated from her husband and wants to take a self-awareness course near Montreal. Tempe spends a few days with Harry and finally lets her have her apartment because she wants to fly to her second center of life, Charlotte in North Carolina , USA, where she teaches as a professor at the university during the semester. When connections to the case in St. Jovite and a sect in Beaufort , South Carolina emerge, her Montreal colleague, Homicide Inspector Andrew Ryan, also comes to Charlotte.

In Beaufort, Tempe is called in as a forensic expert in another murder case: two female corpses are found on an isolated research island for monkeys. While Tempe is working on this murder case, she also assists Ryan in pursuing a lead in the St. Jovite murder case: This lead leads to a sect that lives in isolation on the outskirts of Beaufort. Several of St. Jovite's victims may have been members of the sect. The visits by the police were initially unsuccessful because the members of the sect did not want to speak. However, based on information from a member, the pregnant Kathryn, the suspicion grows that the dead in St. Jovite fled the sect and may have been murdered as a result.

Events come to a head when the sect suddenly disappears from Beaufort. The investigation and Tempes research raise suspicions that this is a sect with end-time expectations and that the sect members are on their way to a central meeting point where they may commit suicide together. There are also further connections between the murders in Beaufort and St. Jovite, because in both cases the victims were first anesthetized with Rohypnol and the grounds of the sect in Beaufort and St. Jovite belong to the same person.

Tempe accompanies Ryan on his way back to Montreal because her sister Harry has disappeared and Tempe is concerned that Harry has ended up in the hands of a cult through self-discovery classes. Some evidence suggests that this may be the end time sect from Beaufort. Ryan and Tempe manage to elicit information from Anna Gayotte, which leads them to the possible headquarters of the sect near Montreal.

In the deepest snowstorm, Tempe and Ryan finally arrive at the sect's premises. Ryan is shot while entering the premises and Tempe is captured. An intervention by the local police puts an end to the cult members' planned suicide and saves Ryan, Tempe and Harry, who was held there. As it turns out, the St. Jovite family was actually murdered for leaving the sect, as were the victims at Beaufort and Île des Soers. Daisy Jeannotte is also found dead on the premises. She is the sister of a leading cult member and, despite some doubts, supported him in his activities for a long time until she finally wanted to stop the cult and was therefore murdered.

The novel ends with the delivery of the report to Elisabeth Nicolet to the nunnery. The forensic examinations and Tempes research provide another surprise: Élisabeth Nicolet has Afro-American roots. It is the result of an affair between her mother, the singer Eugénie Nicolet, with an African from the Gold Coast and professor at the University of Halle , Abo Gabassa, who, like Eugénie, was on a trip to Europe.

shape

In the second novel, too, it should be noted that the author - like her protagonist Tempe Brennan - is a forensic anthropologist by profession. In view of the very detailed and well-founded descriptions of their autopsies, one critic wrote that the novel was "the best advertising brochure for the profession of forensic anthropologist" that he knew. As with all of her books, Reichs also integrates her own experiences into the action with backbreaking work . In this case, it is the experience she gained from investigating incidents related to the Sun Templar sect.

Position in literary history

Death du Jour is the second detective novel in a crime series with forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan as the main character. The crime series, along with the novels by Patricia Cornwell, is one of the main representatives of the "forensic detective novel" genre.

reception

Kathy Reichs' crime novels became international bestsellers in the 1990s and 2000s. In Publishers Weekly , Reichs is praised for the convincing portrayal of their heroine in Death du Jour , as well as the drastic description of the corpses in detail and the explanation of the scientific work of forensics.

The character of Temperance Brennan by Kathy Reichs also served as inspiration for the television series Bones .

See also

literature

Text output

  • Kathy Reichs: Death du Jour . Scribner, New York 1999, ISBN 0-684-84118-5 . (First edition)
  • Kathy Reichs: Death du Jour . Pocket Star, 2000, ISBN 0-671-01137-5 .
  • Kathy Reichs: Backbreaking work . Translated from the English by Klaus Berr. Blanvalet, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-442-35393-9 . (German translation)

Secondary literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dorothee Birke, Stella Butter, Marion Gymnich: 'Talking bodies': Kathy Reichs . In: Vera Nünning (ed.): The American and British crime novel. Genres - developments - model interpretations . Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, Trier 2008, ISBN 978-3-86821-071-2 , p. 135.
  2. ^ Death du Jour (book review) . In: Publishers Weekly (publishersweekly.com), last accessed August 17, 2019.
  3. ^ Official website of Kathy Reichs , last accessed on August 14, 2019.