In the run up to the biggest NASCAR raceweek of the year, Dr Temperance Brennan is called to a landfill site backing onto the Charlotte speedway track in North Carolina. Someone has discovered a barrel of hardened asphalt with a human hand poking through the top. With the country's press trained on Charlotte, it is up to Tempe to try to release and identify the body in the barrel. But there is more than one potential victim: the brother of a girl who went missing with her boyfriend ten years before comes forward, and the trail he sets in motion leads Tempe to one of America's largest fascist organisations. But before she can discover anything, the FBI confiscates the body and destroys it. What terrible secret could they be hiding? As tension at the speedway mounts, Tempe tries to unravel the conspiracy of lies surrounding the missing couple, the body in the barrel, and the horrific death at the track of yet another victim...

About the Author

Kathy Reichs is forensic anthropologist for the Offices 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 divides her time between Charlotte and Montreal and is a frequent expert witness in criminal trials.

Prizes

The 14th Temperance Brennan thriller from international bestselling author, and world-class forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs.

Reviews

In this latest book in the Temperance Brennan series, the forensic anthropologist-and inspiration for the television series Bones-finds herself in Charlotte, N.C., and in the middle of a case involving auto racing, a corpse hidden in a barrel of asphalt for 10 years, and an assortment of missing persons, including one with ties to a white supremacist group known as the Patriot Posse. Narrator Linda Emond-who has ably handled previous books in the series-captures the essence of the book's heroine: wry, self-deprecating, smart, and never smug. Emond also provides appropriate voices for male characters and produces an assortment of believable Southern accents, including the marzipan-sweet sounds of Brennan's office receptionist and the whiny demands of a dim-bulb beauty contest winner. But Emond's finest achievements are the voices she lends to both gruff and cynical detective Skinny Slidell and the sinister leader of the Patriot Posse. A Scribner hardcover. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.