Devil Bones - Kathy Reichs
Dr Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist is called to the scene in an underground chamber in a seedy, dilapidated house in Charlotte, North Carolina. She fights her claustrophobia and the awful smell of rotting flesh as she descends the very precariously steep, makeshift wooden steps. A ritulistic display awaits her: slain chickens, a goat and a skull, ghostly pale with the lower jaw missing and the empty orbits staring back at her. Beads and antlers are suspended above two cauldrons.
The skull is confirmed as that of a young black female - but how did she die and when? Then, just as Tempe is working to determine the post-mortem interval, another body is uncovered - a headless torso carved with Satanic symbols. Citizen vigilantes blame Devil-worshippers and begin a witch-hunt, intent on revenge.
Tempe makes another chilling discovery and the more she learns, the more she seems to be putting herself in danger…