The meticulously dismembered body of a woman is discovered in the grounds of an abandoned monastery. 'Too decomposed for standard autopsy. Request antrhopologic expertise.' Enter Dr Temperance Brennan, Director of Forensic Antrhopology for the province of Quebec, who has been researching recent disappearances in the city. Despite the deep cynicism of Detective Claudel who head the investigation, Brennan is convinced that a serial killer is at work. Her forensic expertise finally convinces Claudel, but only after the body count has risen…Tempe takes matters into her own hands, but her determined probing places those closest to her in mortal danger. Can Tempe make her crucial breakthrough before the killer strikes again?

Review

Reichs' stunning debut thriller draws on her experience as a forensic anthropologist in North Carolina and Montreal, but it has considerably more going for it than the mere stamp of authenticity. The devil is in the details, and it is the small betraying details--the alignment of cuts in bloody bone--that convince Temperance Brennan that a series of women, murdered in different ways, were killed and dismembered by the same hand and the same saw. Knowing what she knows is one thing, but convincing her police colleagues is quite another.
Reichs skilfully depicts police canteen culture and the way it ensures that someone who is an expert outsider, not one of the lads, is always going to have to go that extra mile to prove herself and her ideas. Brennan is a toughie, though, and not too fussy about demarcation disputes. Reichs has found a way of having her cake and eating it and giving us a detective who combines professional expertise with enthusiastic amateurism. Even more compellingly, the suspense is turned up several notches when Brennan realizes that she is hunted as well as hunter--they find the killer's lair and find her photograph among his trophies… --Roz Kaveney

Author Biography

Kathy Reichs is forensic anthropologist for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, State of North Carolina, and for the Laboratorie de Sciences Judiciaires et de Medecine Legale for the province of Quebec. She is one of only fifty-six forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Antrhopology, and served on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. A professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Dr Reichs is a native of Chicago, hwere she received her Ph.D at Northwestern. She divides her time between Charlotte and Montreal, and is a frequent expert witness in criminal trials.