DATE: Wednesday, October 8, 1997            TAG: 9710090779

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E6   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Book Review 

SOURCE: BY ANN G. SJOERDSMA 

                                            LENGTH:   90 lines

NORTH CAROLINA WRITER DELIVERS PAGE-TURNING THRILL RIDE

KATHY REICHS has been described as North Carolina's answer to Virginia's Patricia Cornwell - at least, by people in the Tar Heel State. Reichs lives part of the year in Charlotte; Cornwell, in Richmond.

In truth, the comparison ends where it begins. Both ``Deja Dead,'' Reichs' best-selling debut, and Cornwell's many Dr. Kay Scarpetta, M.E., novels are forensic thrillers that feature a strong female scientist as protagonist. Mais, c'est tout (But, that's all), as Reichs' bilingual, and brilliant, forensic anthropologist Temperance (``Tempe'') Brennan would say.

In a head-to-head write-off with Cornwell, Reichs - like Brennan, a forensic anthropologist for the state of North Carolina and the province of Quebec - wins hands-down. No bones about it.

``Deja Dead'' is jet-propelled, highly intelligent and absorbing. A page-turner - with few soft spots.

It's appropriate to speak of heads and hands, severed from bodies and decomposed, when speaking of ``Deja Dead.'' No sooner has Tempe - ``Brennan'' to her friends, colleagues and inner self - set aside skull fragments from a man who blew himself up than she is dispatched to a newly uncovered burial site in the heart of Montreal, where the North Carolina anthropologist is spending a year's leave.

There, she finds plastic garbage bagfuls of bones, which, when pieced together, form a young woman's skeleton.

Brennan ``rattles'' them bones in the lab, searching for clues to identity and murder. The peculiar dismemberment and burial method remind her of an earlier slaying, and, before long, she has developed a serial killer theory, not appreciated by the tight-lipped detective on the case. Hostile Luc Claudel, one of many interesting police ensemble characters, has every reason to resent Brennan. Though she acts a lot like Lynda La Plante's Jane Tennison, from TV's ``Prime Suspect,'' Tempe Brennan isn't a cop.

A mere technicality, though, for Reichs, who knows from experience how to connect anthropology to homicide - the bones, the bones. Her descriptions of forensic work simply dazzle. Reichs is so good at conveying the excitement of Brennan's discoveries that she can make a discussion about saws seem sexy with anticipation:

``You are of the carpentry and grout gender. What do you know about saws?'' I continued laying bones in the box.

``They cut things.''

``Good. What things?''

``Wood. Shrubbery. Metal.'' He paused. ``Bone.''

And so forth, as our heroine uses the Socratic method, a la Tracy-Hepburn's ``Adam's Rib,'' to enlighten Andrew Ryan, a rather alluring homicide cop.

Reichs' dialogues bubble right along, and her narrative is often sensuous, even about the mundane:

``The heat and the steam and the scent of jasmine should have relaxed me, loosened the tension in my muscles and carried away the soreness. They hadn't. The whole time I was listening for a sound outside my rectangle of steam. I was waiting for the phone to ring.''

Montreal in summer? It's like a ``rhumba dancer: all ruffles and bright cotton, with flashing thighs and sweat-slicked skin.''

Fluent in French, Reichs good-naturedly teases and contrasts Francophones and Anglophones, and exposes some Canadian attitudes about America, especially our violent crime. The setting makes for a nice change of pace.

Reichs slips a bit at the end, though, relying on some tired plot devices, including the now expected unexpected confrontation.

Like her language, Reichs' characters are refreshingly full, mature and complex - except when they're not. Which is to say that sometimes she packages too much.

A middle-aged graduate of the school of honest self-acceptance, Brennan has an estranged husband and college-age daughter in Charlotte. OK. Fine. But does she also need an incongruous alcoholic past? Forget the simplistic up-from-the-booze explanation. Just let her have a hard-earned edge. It's marvelous.

Some of Reichs' other female characters - a best friend from the radical '60s, a prostitute, and an owl-eyed computer scientist - suggest caricature, but survive it. Her police - all men - come across as macho and vulgar, yet comforting.

In sum, what the analytical Reichs may lack in spontaneity of character or action, she more than makes up in smarts and bravado. ``Deja Dead'' is terrific fiction. MEMO: Ann G. Sjoerdsma is book editor for The Virginian-Pilot. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by PETER LIEPKE

``Deja Dead'' is North Carolina resident Kathy Reichs' first novel.

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BOOK REVIEW

``Deja Dead''

Author: Kathy Reichs

Publisher: Scribner. 411 pp.

Price: $24

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