In her most riveting thriller yet, Reichs--bestselling author, forensic anthropologist, and producer of the television hit "Bones," based on her Temperance Brennan books--pits Brennan against an enigma out of her own past.

In her most riveting thriller yet, Reichs--bestselling author, forensic anthropologist, and producer of the television hit "Bones," based on her Temperance Brennan books--pits Brennan against an enigma out of her own past.

Temperance Brennan, like her creator Kathy Reichs, is a brilliant, sexy forensic anthropologist called on to solve the toughest cases. But for Tempe, the discovery of a young girl's skeleton in Acadia, Canada, is more than just another assignment. vang line, Tempe's childhood best friend, was also from Acadia. Named for the character in the Longfellow poem, vang line was the most exotic person in Tempe's eight-year-old world. When vang line disappeared, Tempe was warned not to search for her, that the girl was "dangerous."

Thirty years later, flooded with memories, Tempe cannot help wondering if this skeleton could be the friend she lost so many years ago. And what is the meaning of the strange skeletal lesions found on the bones of the young girl? Meanwhile, Tempe's beau, Ryan, investigates a series of cold cases. Three girls dead. Four missing. Could the New Brunswick skeleton be part of the pattern? As Tempe draws on the latest advances in forensic anthropology to penetrate the past, Ryan hunts down a serial predator.