Cold, Cold Bones (Temperance Brennan, #21)

#1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with her twenty-first novel of suspense featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan who, after receiving a box with a human eyeball in it, uncovers a series of gruesome 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. As the two penetrate 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.