A Conspiracy Of Bones

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER #1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with her nineteenth novel featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, who must use all her tradecraft to discover the identity of a faceless corpse, its connection to a decade-old missing child case, and why the dead man had her cellphone number. It’s sweltering in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Temperance Brennan, still recovering from neurosurgery following an aneurysm, is battling nightmares, migraines, and what she thinks might be hallucinations when she receives a series of mysterious text messages, each containing a new picture of a corpse that is missing its face and hands. Immediately, she’s anxious to know who the dead man is, and why the images were sent to her. An unidentified corpse soon turns up, only partly answering her questions. To win answers to the others, including the man’s identity, she must go rogue, working mostly outside the system. That’s because Tempe’s new boss holds a fierce grudge against her and is determined to keep her off the case. Tempe bulls forward anyway, even as she begins questioning her instincts. But the clues she discovers are disturbing and confusing. Was the faceless man a spy? A trafficker? A target for assassination by the government? And why was he carrying the name of a child missing for almost a decade? With help from a number of law enforcement associates including her Montreal beau Andrew Ryan and the always-ready-with-a-smart-quip, ex-homicide investigator Skinny Slidell, and utilizing new cutting-edge forensic methods, Tempe draws closer to the astonishing truth. But the more she uncovers, the darker and more twisted the picture becomes...

In this latest blockbuster novel from bestselling author Kathy Reichs, forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan investigates what looks to be a typical missing person case, only to find herself digging up bones possibly left by a serial killer, a cult, or perhaps something not entirely of this world. For every case that Temperance Brennan has solved, there remain numerous bodies that remain unidentified in her lab. Information on some of these cold cases is available online, where amateur detectives sometimes take a stab at solving cases. When Tempe gets a call from Hazel “Lucky” Strike, a web sleuth who believes she’s successfully connected a body in Tempe’s lab to a missing eighteen-year-old girl, Tempe writes it off as another false alarm. Still reeling from her mother’s diagnosis and the shock of Andrew Ryan’s potentially life-change proposal, Tempe has little patience for chasing false leads. But when the bones in the lab match the missing girl’s medical records, Tempe re-opens the case, returning to the spot where her remains were originally found. What seems at first to be an isolated tragedy takes on a more sinister cast as Tempe uncovers two more sets of bones nearby. Even more troubling is that the area is known as a viewing point for a famous unexplained light phenomenon, and that a local cult nearby has significant interest in the site. Tempe’s suspicions turn to murder by ritual sacrifice—a theory that gains even more urgency when Hazel herself turns up dead. Struggling to follow the tracks of a killer who will do anything not to be discovered, Tempe races to solve the murders and unravel the mysteries surrounding the site before the body count climbs higher. A suspenseful, modern addition to Temperance Brennan’s ongoing story, Speaking in Bones proves that Kathy’s pulse-pounding Bones series shows no signs of slowing down.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with her nineteenth riveting novel featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, who must use all her tradecraft to discover the identity of a faceless corpse, its connection to a decade-old missing child case, and why the dead man had her cellphone number. It’s sweltering in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Temperance Brennan, still recovering from neurosurgery following an aneurysm, is battling nightmares, migraines, and what she thinks might be hallucinations when she receives a series of mysterious text messages, each containing a new picture of a corpse that is missing its face and hands. Immediately, she’s anxious to know who the dead man is, and why the images were sent to her. An identified corpse soon turns up, only partly answering her questions. To win answers to the others, including the man’s identity, she must go rogue, working mostly outside the system. That’s because Tempe’s new boss holds a fierce grudge against her and is determined to keep her out of the case. Tempe bulls forward anyway, even as she begins questioning her instincts. But the clues she discovers are disturbing and confusing. Was the faceless man a spy? A trafficker? A target for assassination by the government? And why was he carrying the name of a child missing for almost a decade? With help from a number of law enforcement associates including her Montreal beau Andrew Ryan and the always-ready-with-a-smart-quip, ex-homicide investigator Skinny Slidell, and utilizing new cutting-edge forensic methods, Tempe draws closer to the astonishing truth. But the more she uncovers, the darker and more twisted the picture becomes...

In the riveting fourteenth novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling Temperance Brennan series by Kathy Reichs, a dead body is discovered near the North Carolina speedway right before a NASCAR competition is scheduled to begin. Just as 200,000 fans begin pouring into Charlotte, North Carolina for Raceweek, a body is found in a barrel of asphalt in a landfill next to the Lowes Motor Speedway. The following day, a NASCAR crew member visits Temperance Brennan at the MCME and tells her that his sister, Cyndi Gamble, an aspiring NASCAR driver, and her boyfriend, Cale Lovett, mysteriously disappeared twelve years earlier. Could the body be Cyndi’s? Or Cale’s? As Tempe delves into the old case, secrets begin to surface. Brennan learns that, because of Lovett’s association with right wing extremists, the FBI had joined the investigation at the time of the pair’s disappearance, only to then terminate the search a short while later. Was it a cover-up? Or a simple open-and-shut case? As Tempe considers multiple theories, another man, Ted Raines, goes missing in Charlotte. An employee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Raines was in town for the big race. So when Tempe’s tests finds a surprising, secret substance mixed in with the remains in the barrel, Tempe wonders just what Raines was up to…or if the body might be his. As she struggles to uncover who is hiding what, Tempe discovers just how far the government is willing to go to keep its secrets safe.

A complex and riveting tale of deceit and murder unfolds in this repackage of the thirteenth thrilling novel in Reichs’s "cleverly plotted and expertly maintained series" (The New York Times Book Review). John Lowery was declared dead in 1968—the victim of a Huey crash in Vietnam, his body buried long ago in North Carolina. Four decades later, Temperance Brennan is called to the scene of a drowning in Hemmingford, Quebec. The victim appears to have died while in the midst of a bizarre sexual practice. The corpse is later identified as John Lowery. But how could Lowery have died twice, and how did an American soldier end up in Canada? Tempe sets off for the answer, exhuming Lowery’s grave in North Carolina and taking the remains to Hawaii for reanalysis—to the headquarters of JPAC, the U.S. military’s Joint POW/ MIA Accounting Command, which strives to recover Americans who have died in past conflicts. In Hawaii, Tempe is joined by her colleague and ex-lover Detective Andrew Ryan (how "ex" is he?) and by her daughter, who is recovering from her own tragic loss. Soon another set of remains is located, with Lowery’s dog tags tangled among them. Three bodies—all identified as Lowery. And then Tempe is contacted by Hadley Perry, Honolulu’s flamboyant medical examiner, who needs help identifying the remains of an adolescent boy found offshore. Was he the victim of a shark attack? Or something much more sinister?

An original novel based on Fox's new hit television series, inspired by real-life forensic anthropologist and novelist Kathy Reichs, creator of the Temperance Brennan series. Original.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with her twentieth gripping novel featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, whose examinations, fifteen years apart, of unidentified bodies ignite a terrifying series of events. On the way to hurricane-ravaged Isle of Palms, a barrier island off the South Carolina coast, Tempe receives a call from the Charleston coroner. The storm has tossed ashore a medical waste container. Inside are two decomposed bodies wrapped in plastic sheeting and bound with electrical wire. Tempe recognizes many details as identical to those of an unsolved case she handled in Quebec years earlier. With a growing sense of foreboding, she travels to Montreal to gather evidence. Meanwhile, health authorities in South Carolina become increasingly alarmed as a human flesh-eating contagion spreads. So focused is Tempe on identifying the container victims that, initially, she doesn’t register how their murders and the pestilence may be related. But she does recognize one unsettling fact. Someone is protecting a dark secret—and is willing to do anything to keep it hidden. An absorbing look at the sinister uses to which genetics can be put, and featuring a cascade of ever-more-shocking revelations, The Bone Code is Temperance Brennan’s most astonishing case yet—one that gives new meaning to today’s headlines.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with her twenty-first taut novel of suspense featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan who, after receiving a box with a human eyeball in it, uncovers a series of ever more grisly killings eerily reenacting the most shocking of her prior cases. Winter has come to North Carolina and, with it, a drop in crime. For a while, temporarily idle forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan is content to dote on her daughter Katy, finally returned to civilian life from the army. But when mother and daughter meet at Tempe’s place one night for dinner, they find a box on the back porch. Inside: a very fresh human eyeball. GPS coordinates etched into the eyeball lead to a Benedictine Monastery where an equally macabre discovery awaits. Soon after, Tempe examines a mummified corpse in a state park, and her anxiety deepens. There seems to be no pattern to these random killings, except that each mimics in some way a killing that a younger Tempe witnessed, analyzed, or barely escaped. Who or what is targeting her, and why? Helping Tempe discover the answers is Detective Erskine “Skinny” Slidell, retired but still volunteering with the CMPD cold case unit—and still displaying his gallows humor. But as the two infiltrate a bizarre survivalist’s lair, even Skinny’s mood darkens. And then Tempe’s daughter Katy disappears. At its core, Cold, Cold Bones is a novel of revenge and why revisiting the past may be the only way to rescue the present.