But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice ( The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. The amateur sleuths have their own near-death experience before the killer is discovered.īelievers and skeptics alike will enjoy Harper’s search for the truth and her changing relationship with Tolliver.Īnother sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.Ī week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Because Harper and Tolliver come from a dysfunctional family, they recognize problems among the Morgensterns, and they soon unearth many snippets of information that never came to light in the original investigation. The skeptical police consider Harper a prime suspect when Nunley turns up dead in the same grave after verbally abusing Harper in a hotel lobby. Harper’s stepbrother Tolliver, her manager and traveling companion, had had a brief affair with Tabitha’s aunt.
The body is that of Tabitha Morgenstern, 11, whose body Harper had tried and failed to find 18 months earlier. When he invites Harper Connelly to visit an old campus graveyard where records labeling the bodies and causes of death have just been discovered, she confounds him as she works through the graves, correctly identifying each manner of death, until she comes to one she knows contains a recent burial. Being struck by lightning has given Harper Connelly ( Grave Sight, 2005, etc.) the ability to find dead bodies and know what killed them-a spooky talent that earns her a living and places her in frequent danger.Ĭlyde Nunley is a professor at a Memphis-area college who loves to debunk paranormal behavior.
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