Synopses & Reviews
"Fans of TV's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation should be in heaven" (People) stepping into the world of forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan, star of Kathy Reichs' electrifyingly authentic bestsellers.
A harrowing excavation unearths a chilling tragedy never laid to rest.
They are "the disappeared," twenty-three massacre victims buried in a well in the Guatemalan village of Chupan Ya two decades ago. Leading a team of experts on a meticulous, heartbreaking dig, Tempe Brennan pieces together the violence of the past. But a fresh wave of terror begins when the horrific sounds of a fatal attack on two colleagues come in on a blood-chilling satellite call. Teaming up with Special Crimes Investigator Bartolomé Galiano and Montreal detective Andrew Ryan, Tempe quickly becomes enmeshed in the cases of four privileged young women who have vanished from Guatemala City -- and finds herself caught in deadly territory where power, money, greed, and science converge.
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Anne Rivers Siddons If there is anyone as good at the forensic thriller, I don't know who it is. Kathy Reichs's science is cold and elegant, and her characters are warm and complex. The result is irresistible.
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"Powerful . . . a page-turner." -- The Hartford Courant (CT)
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USA TodayTempe Brennan is the lab lady most likely to dethrone Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta.
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"The medical details . . . [are] vivid and fascinating." -- Booklist
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"Chilling."-- People
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"Chilling." -- People
Synopsis
As fresh and shocking as today's headlines, a bone-chilling Tempe Brennan novel of international black marketeering in fetal tissue, decades old mass murder, and contemporary homicide from New York Times bestselling author and world-class forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs. It was a summer morning in 1982 when soldiers ravaged the village of Chupan Ya, raping and killing women and children. Twenty-three victims are said to lie in the well where, twenty years later, Dr. Temperance Brennan and a team from the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation now dig. No records were kept. To their families, the dead are "the disappeared."
Forensic anthropologist for the medical examiners in North Carolina and Montreal, Tempe is in Guatemala for a month's service to help some families identify and bury their dead. She digs in a cold, damp pit where she finds a hair clip, a fragment of cloth, a tiny sneaker. Her trowel touches something hard: the hip of a child no more than two years old.
It's heartbreaking work. Something savage happened here twenty years ago. The violence continues today. The team is packing up for the day when an urgent satellite call comes in. Two colleagues are under attack. Shots ring out, and Tempe listens in horror to a woman's screams. Then there is silence. Dead silence.
With this new violence, everything changes, both for the team and for Tempe, who's asked by the Guatemalan police for her expertise on another case. Four privileged young women have vanished from Guatemala City in recent months. One is the Canadian ambassador's daughter. Some remains have turned up in a septic tank, and Tempe unfortunately knows septic tanks.
Teaming with Special Crimes Investigator Bartolom Galiano, and with Montreal detective Andrew Ryan, who may have more than just professional reasons to join her on the case, Tempe soon finds herself in a dangerous web that stretches far beyond Guatemala's borders. The stakes are huge. As power, money, greed, and science converge, Tempe must make life-altering choices.
From cutting-edge science in the lab, where Tempe studies fetal bones and cat hair DNA, to a chilling encounter in a lonely morgue, Grave Secrets is powerful, page-turning entertainment from a crime fiction superstar who combines riveting authenticity with witty, elegant prose.
Synopsis
As fresh and shocking as today's headlines, a "chilling" (People) Temperance Brennan novel in which a harrowing excavation unearths a terrible tragedy never laid to rest--from New York Times bestselling author and world-class forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs. They are "the disappeared," twenty-three massacre victims buried in a well in the Guatemalan village of Chupan Ya two decades ago. Leading a team of experts on a meticulous, heartbreaking dig, Tempe Brennan pieces together the violence of the past. But a fresh wave of terror begins when the horrific sounds of a fatal attack on two colleagues come in on a blood-chilling satellite call. Teaming up with Special Crimes Investigator Bartolome Galiano and Montreal detective Andrew Ryan, Tempe quickly becomes enmeshed in the cases of four privileged young women who have vanished from Guatemala City--and finds herself caught in deadly territory where power, money, greed, and science converge.
Synopsis
"Fans of TV's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation should be in heaven" (People) stepping into the world of forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan, star of Kathy Reichs' electrifyingly authentic bestsellers.
A harrowing excavation unearths a chilling tragedy never laid to rest.
They are "the disappeared," twenty-three massacre victims buried in a well in the Guatemalan village of Chupan Ya two decades ago. Leading a team of experts on a meticulous, heartbreaking dig, Tempe Brennan pieces together the violence of the past. But a fresh wave of terror begins when the horrific sounds of a fatal attack on two colleagues come in on a blood-chilling satellite call. Teaming up with Special Crimes Investigator Bartolomé Galiano and Montreal detective Andrew Ryan, Tempe quickly becomes enmeshed in the cases of four privileged young women who have vanished from Guatemala City -- and finds herself caught in deadly territory where power, money, greed, and science converge.
About the Author
Kathy Reichs is the#1 international bestselling author of six novels featuring Dr. Temperance Brennan: Déjà Dead, Death du Jour, Deadly Décisions, Fatal Voyage, Grave Secrets, and Bare Bones. Reichs is forensic anthropologist for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, State of North Carolina, and for the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Quebec. She is one of only fifty forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology and is a former member 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, and received her Ph.D. at Northwestern University. She now divides her time between Charlotte and Montreal and is a frequent expert witness in criminal trials.