by Kathy Reichs
Part of Temperance Brennan, book 7
First published 2005
Temperance Brennan arrives in Montreal to testify at a murder trial but finds herself crawling through the freezing basement of a pizza parlor instead. Three skeletonized remains of young women lie among the rats and debris. Detective Luc Claudel dismisses the bones as historical artifacts, pointing to nineteenth-century buttons found nearby. Tempe thinks otherwise. Her lab work reveals the truth through Carbon-14 dating and tooth enamel analysis. The women died recently, and their origins point to a disturbing pattern. While Claudel must now confront three fresh homicides, Detective Andrew Ryan begins taking secretive phone calls and vanishing without explanation. Tempe faces another stretch of solitary evenings with only her cat Birdie for company. Her investigation pulls her into a dangerous network where women vanish without trace. The forensic evidence tells one story, but the web of evil surrounding these deaths threatens to claim Tempe as its next victim.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: dark, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: amateur-detective, cat-and-mouse, secrets
Setting: Montreal
Period: 21st-century
383 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Pocket Star
Content warnings: death, murder, violence