Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
456th out of 4,072 books
—
19,797 voters
Blood Memory
by
Greg Iles
Bestselling author Greg Iles melds forensic detail with penetrating insight into the heart of a killer in a southern town.
Some memories live deep in the soul, indelible and dangerous, waiting to be resurrected....Forensic expert "Cat" Ferry is suspended from an FBI task force when the world-class odontologist is inexplicably stricken with panic attacks and blackouts while
...morePaperback, 800 pages
Published
November 22nd 2005
by Pocket Star
(first published January 1st 2005)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
3,000)
A dark, disturbing, passionate, and horrific novel of sexual child abuse, violence, killing, suicide, depression, and mystery. This was a well written book, which contains one of the best female characters created by a male author I have ever read. The powerful first person narrative propelled me from the first page to the last with startling speed. The combination of repressed memory, forensic dentistry, incest, and psychology make this a read that is not for everyone because of its unsettling...more
Everything about this book makes me think that Greg Iles is too good to be true. He did everything against the rules--a male writing from a female character's point of view, making the main character so incredibly flawed that it blows your mind, having a supporting character that accepts those flaws without question. He was able to blend the touchy subjects of sexual abuse, race relations, and economic class differences into one hell of a whirlwind ride. This was the first Greg Iles book I've re...more
11 likes · like · see review
Blood Memory is about a lot of things; how a small evidence could lead to an unimaginable truth about one's past, of the family's past and a bitter tragedy would lead to bitter memories! I was fascinated by the flow of the story, how beautifully one thing lead to another.. Repressed memories, child abuses, its consequences and the determination of a lady to know the truth! I will not regret reading this one just a couple of days before an important exam! :)
I started really loving the book towards the end. There was a lot of medical jargon an terms in there that (in my opinion) did not add to the story. We already know she know her way around corpses and that she's an odontologist. All the medical blah-blah just takes up time and energy. This said, this book kept me guessing at every turn, wondering who might have done what and how. I started making assumptions of guilt, profiling the characters at my kitchen table and with each new piece of eviden...more
I loved Greg Iles' Dead Sleep's depiction of art-horror. I started Blood Memory once before and got to page 70 or so ... I restarted it and
!WOW!
Blood Memory is totally the most disturbing, most adult, most gut-wrenching experience I've ever put myself through. In the strange tall format paperback I read, it comes to about 800 pages and it NEVER dragged. The choice of a first-person female protagonist was a canny move, it allowed Iles to take the real-life male-lion-ruthlessness to just another...more
!WOW!
Blood Memory is totally the most disturbing, most adult, most gut-wrenching experience I've ever put myself through. In the strange tall format paperback I read, it comes to about 800 pages and it NEVER dragged. The choice of a first-person female protagonist was a canny move, it allowed Iles to take the real-life male-lion-ruthlessness to just another...more
I went back and forth on this book. It is a good/fast read and I did enjoy it, but I really hated the protagonist. I mean she defined bitch for me and I didn't sympathize with her. She dated a married man, and felt no responsiblity for it (event though she knew he was married). She got pregnant by him. She always made the wrong decisions when it came to her job. She got people killed and didn't seem to care as long as she got what she wanted in the end. I know I sound terribly b/c you find out s...more
I thought this was a great mystery, and author Iles showed genius in the plotting, and creativity in integrating some pretty unique and disparate topics such as forensic dentistry, recovery of repressed, PTSD of Vietnam vets, the geo political culture of Louisiana and Mississippi and the older over of white supremacy in the south. Quite a combo, right? Cat is the forensic dentist (really?) who is bipolar, alcoholic and a sex addict, but super smart, and I guess she must be hot, since she gets a...more
I think I'm going to take a Greg Iles vacation as well. I maintain an Excel spreadsheet including brief synopses of the books I read. (I know, I don't need to do that since joining Goodreads but old habits are hard to break) I list them by authors and I noticed that the last four Iles books I've read included adjectives like dark, grim and sordid. This is another one. Our hero is a forensic dentist living in New Orleans and she is damaged goods. This story has two central themes; murder and chil...more
read quite a time back, but I do remember I liked the book, the author and the genre ... I like this Greg Iles ...
Forensic expert "Cat" Ferry has a stellar reputation until a panic attack paralyzes her at a New Orleans murder scene. Praying the attack is a one-time event, she continues working, but when the same killer strikes again -- raising fears that a serial killer is at large -- Cat blacks out over the victim's mutilated corpse. Suspended from the FBI task force, Cat returns to her hometow...more
Forensic expert "Cat" Ferry has a stellar reputation until a panic attack paralyzes her at a New Orleans murder scene. Praying the attack is a one-time event, she continues working, but when the same killer strikes again -- raising fears that a serial killer is at large -- Cat blacks out over the victim's mutilated corpse. Suspended from the FBI task force, Cat returns to her hometow...more
Don’t know what I’m doing in my dotage. I downloaded these guys virtually one after the other and hardly put them down till they were finished. Greg Iles is a master of the page turner, leaving you at the end of the page aching to find out what’s on the next. And he creates nice characters and super situations. Each book has a little message or group of messages to deliver. Blood Memory is about child abuse and recovered memory; Turning Angel is about high school drugs and sex and how ignorant a...more
I've read all of Greg Iles's books and though there are some I like better in the end than others, they all have one thing in common: they grab your attention from the first few pages and don't let go. Whatever you think of his writing style or the preposterousness of his plots at times, Iles has a way of pulling you in immediately and not letting go until you've read the last page.
Blood Memory revolves around Cat Ferry, an odontologist working with the police in New Orleans to catch a serial ki...more
Blood Memory revolves around Cat Ferry, an odontologist working with the police in New Orleans to catch a serial ki...more
Another great read from Greg Iles. This guy seems incapable of writing anything that isn't great! Loved this book.
(From B&N)
Hailed by Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code) for his "utterly consuming" suspense fiction, New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles melds forensic detail with penetrating insight into the heart of a killer in a southern town.
Some memories live deep in the soul, indelible and dangerous, waiting to be resurrected....Forensic expert "Cat" Ferry is suspended from an FBI task...more
(From B&N)
Hailed by Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code) for his "utterly consuming" suspense fiction, New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles melds forensic detail with penetrating insight into the heart of a killer in a southern town.
Some memories live deep in the soul, indelible and dangerous, waiting to be resurrected....Forensic expert "Cat" Ferry is suspended from an FBI task...more
I forgot to write this one up too. It's the 2nd Iles book and now I see that he doesn't really write the same characters, he writes the same place -- Natchez, Miss. There are two main mysteries here. One is a serial murderer in New Orleans. The second mystery is our protagonist. She is a forensic odentologist and her personal life is a complete disaster. We meet her as her personal life starts to disintegrate with such force that it crashes into her professional life and both are destroyed.
I fi...more
I fi...more
Audio abridged, 6 hours listening.
I have a few problems with this book! The plot was to say the least full of holes.
Not to go into too much detail there are places in the telling that really don't seem that convincing.
Kat has repressed memories of abuse - it would seem that her entire childhood is one repressed memory. She was systematically abused but doesn't remember one episode of that abuse.
The 'dream scene' got very repetitive and was actually boring at the end.
She has just swam across a fa...more
I have a few problems with this book! The plot was to say the least full of holes.
Not to go into too much detail there are places in the telling that really don't seem that convincing.
Kat has repressed memories of abuse - it would seem that her entire childhood is one repressed memory. She was systematically abused but doesn't remember one episode of that abuse.
The 'dream scene' got very repetitive and was actually boring at the end.
She has just swam across a fa...more
This is my first book by Greg Iles, but it definetly won't be the last. While some of the content in this book was hard to listen to at times, it was excellent. It was well written and was one that caught my interest almost immediately. The story had well developed characters, lots of twists and turns and for the most part, wasn't very predictable.
It does cover some very tough content, so be mindful of this. Kat was abused as a child and there's lots on this topic. At times, it's difficult to re...more
It does cover some very tough content, so be mindful of this. Kat was abused as a child and there's lots on this topic. At times, it's difficult to re...more
2 likes · like · see review
Buried in this massive book are two compelling mysteries - a serial murder case set in New Orleans, Louisiana, and a more personal family drama set in Natchez, Mississippi. While both stories interested me and were well written, I found myself wondering whether a third of the book could have been cut without compromising the plot. That said, the story illustrates well the issues of repressed memory, child abuse, family secrets and revenge.
Blood Memory was a great book. I really enjoyed it. Having said that, it was really hard to get through. The subject matter of childhood sexual abuse is hard for any mother/father to read about, I would think.
Cat Ferry is an interesting character. She is flawed, probably more so than any other character I've ever read about, but I found myself rooting for her to figure it out. Get to the bottom of the murders in New Orleans as well as her own personal drama. It would be the first step to making...more
Cat Ferry is an interesting character. She is flawed, probably more so than any other character I've ever read about, but I found myself rooting for her to figure it out. Get to the bottom of the murders in New Orleans as well as her own personal drama. It would be the first step to making...more
Nov 21, 2012
vorbore
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
mystery-suspense-action
I really enjoyed this book, although it was quite disturbing. This was the first book by this author I read, and I am looking forward to other his books I am going to read. It was obvious who was the actual villain, but I had no problems with main protagonist not seeing it, as because of the circumstances it was expectable. Quite a good translation, too, which definitely added to the quality of my experience. I only had a problem with one small section, where the history of the grandfather is ex...more
CAT FERRY, WHAT A CHARACTER !
Blood memory is a blend of the psychological and crime thrillers where the main subject is sexual abuse in children
The story is good enough to keep you riveted and entertained with its huge array of unexpected twists and turns, but the character of 31 year old forensic odontologist Cat Ferry is probably the best feature of the novel, as she is pregnant from a married lover, suffers from panics attacks, is obsessed with the early death of his father, a veteran from V...more
Blood memory is a blend of the psychological and crime thrillers where the main subject is sexual abuse in children
The story is good enough to keep you riveted and entertained with its huge array of unexpected twists and turns, but the character of 31 year old forensic odontologist Cat Ferry is probably the best feature of the novel, as she is pregnant from a married lover, suffers from panics attacks, is obsessed with the early death of his father, a veteran from V...more
I have mixed feelings about this book. On the positive side I forgot a man was writing the main female character, he did it so well, it was uncanny. He also spoke about a very delicate and terrible thing such as child abuse in a manner that allowed the reader to see the abuse and effects of it; he did not sugar coat it, but at the same time was not crude. There were several mysteries to be solved and at the end they were all related to each other.
On the negative side, it was a very slow book, ov...more
On the negative side, it was a very slow book, ov...more
Sep 14, 2009
Anne Hawn Smith
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone
Shelves:
mystery,
southern-fiction
This is one of the best mysteries I have read in a long time. The protagonist is easy to identify as a troubled young woman who has still remained strong and capable. It is hard to believe that the character was created by a man. The reactions of Cat seem so female and believable. I felt like I was watching her relive her terrible history and rise to the challenge of what she was learning.
The book is very fast paced and hard to put down. As layer after layer of the toxic results of child molest...more
The book is very fast paced and hard to put down. As layer after layer of the toxic results of child molest...more
I don't want to get in the habit of giving everything five stars but in this case, I just have to. I read this book back and forth to work and almost missed my stop several times. This is the third Greg Iles book I have read (True Evil is still my favourite of his books - the female protagonist in that book is another riveting character)and he really knows how to keep a reader riveted and the underlying theme/topics in his books are always well-researched (the main theme was sexual abuse in this...more
This book was a very interesting book and it really keeps you guessing. Cat has to deal with the unexplainable death of her dad 23years earlier but what she soon comes to figure out is, that what she has been told all of those years is a lie. Her dad was not murdered they way she thought her grandpa killed her dad because he was jealous of him. Her grandpa raped her when she was young and always felt attracted to her. She found out also that basically everyone did that on the island where she wa...more
At first, I found this book to have too many cliche's with respect to character. It is short on setting so the plot moves along at a very nice fast pace. Not a difficult book. Once I was about half way through, my interest became stronger. The mystery was sort of transparent, but there were enough elements at the end to make for a satisfying read. While you may figure out early on "who dunnit" there are elements in the last third that keep you reading. (and actually - funny that I don't think ab...more
Cathrine Ferry aka"Cat" is a othdonlist who is helping out in a serial case with strange teeth bites. She starts having flashbacks of her childhood around the time that her dad was murdered. While all of this is happening she is trying to find out the truth of what really happen to her father and help solve the serial killer case. When she starts to fing out the truth her life becomes endangered, but not only her life.
This book is really good there are multiple conflicts and a bunch of irony whe...more
This book is really good there are multiple conflicts and a bunch of irony whe...more
Forensic expert "Cat" Ferry is suspended from an FBI task force when the world-class odontologist is inexplicably stricken with panic attacks and blackouts while investigating a chain of brutal murders. Returning to her Mississippi hometown, Cat finds herself battling with alcohol, plagued by nightmares, and entangled with a married detective. Then, in her childhood bedroom, some spilled chemicals reveal two bloody footprints...and the trauma of her father's murder years earlier comes flooding b...more
more than just a little intense, this novel had a strong emotional basis as well as several murders to solve. i love how iles will introduce a piece of the puzzle and then explain it later in the book. it is much more interesting than giving the entire story at once. this book definitely took a look at the seriousness of abuse situations and the affects that can be lastly. the repressed memory thread was very interesting and then the tie-in to DID was thought provoking. the ending surprised me....more
I have to hand it to the author, he sure knows how to vary himself. I only wish he could keep his work at the top throughout all of his variations. You see, when I read "Black Cross" some twenty years ago, it completely blew me away. The fact that I still remember its plot after all those years is proof enough for the impact it had on me. Then I read "Spandau Phoenix" and I could hardly believe it was written by the same author, it was completely worthless. I then forgot all about Greg Isles, un...more
This book kept me turning the pages. A disturbing tale that has just about everything to keep the reader's attention. There are many characters that you love to hate, and those that you love because of their strength and neverending courage.
A plot that is so rich that you find yourself trying to solve the mystery before the Author does. There are also many twists and turns that keep your heart pumping vigorously.
Nothing here is really predictable, and I loved the characters, the plot, everythi...more
A plot that is so rich that you find yourself trying to solve the mystery before the Author does. There are also many twists and turns that keep your heart pumping vigorously.
Nothing here is really predictable, and I loved the characters, the plot, everythi...more
An airplane book. Fast reading but overly long. This was typical Greg Iles in that it was violent and graphic. It was also unbelievable. I simply cannot understand how the protagonist managed to scamper from Nachez to New Orleans and then back again (even getting dunked in a river after being shot) repeatedly without packing a suitcase. But she did. I guess what put me off to this is the credence given to the repressed memory movement and the suggestion that child sexual abuse can cause bipolar...more
2 likes · like · see review
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| abuse survivors | 3 | 25 | Oct 03, 2011 07:42pm |
Greg Iles was born in Germany in 1960. He grew up in Natchez, Mississippi, and graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1983. He was active in a band called "Frankly Scarlet", but quit after realizing that the touring lifestyle was not conducive with his family life. Once no longer busy with the band, he turned his attention to writing.
Greg's novels have been translated into various languag...more
More about Greg Iles...
Greg's novels have been translated into various languag...more
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
Jul 05, 2011 05:57pm