Déjà Dead (Temperance Brennan #1)

"Deja Dead" was Kathy Reichs' first Temperance Brennan forensic detective novel, and was pretty much an overnight, star-making sensation. For which, as it happens, Reichs was well-prepared: forensic anthropologist for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, State of North Carolina; and for the Laboratoire des Sciences Judiciarires et de Medicine Legal for the Canadian province of Quebec. She didn't reach too far, of course, in creating Temperance, a woman who works in Quebec and North Carolina, but then she's proven she didn't need to.