Dr Temperance Brennan spends her life working amongst the decomposed, the mutilated and the skeletal. So the two-days-dead body she is called to examine holds little to surprise her. Until she discovers that the man is John Lowery, an ex-soldier who was apparently killed in Vietnam in 1968. So who is buried in Lowery's grave.The case takes Tempe to the heart of the American military, where she must examine the remains of anyone who may have had a connection to the drowned man. It's a harrowing task, but it pays off when she finds Lowery's dog tags amongst the bones of a long-dead soldier.As Tempe unravels the tangled threads of the soldiers' lives and deaths, she realises there are some who would rather the past stayed dead and buried. And when she proves difficult to frighten, they turn their attention to the one person she would give her life to protect.

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A gripping Temperance Brennan novel from world-class forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs, the international no.1 bestselling crime thriller writer and the inspiration behind the hit TV series Bones.Dr Temperance Brennan spends her life working amongst the decomposed and the skeletal. So the newly-dead body she's called to examine holds little to surprise her. Until she discovers it's the body of an ex-soldier apparently killed in Vietnam in 1968. So who is buried in his grave?The case takes Tempe to the heart of the American military, where she must examine the remains of anyone with a possible connection to the drowned man.As Tempe untangles the web of the soldiers' lives and deaths, she realises there are some who would rather the past stayed buried.___________________________________Many of the world's greatest thriller writers are huge fans of her work:'Kathy Reichs writes smart - no, make that brilliant - mysteries that are as realistic as nonfiction and as fast-paced as the best thrillers about Jack Reacher, or Alex Cross' JAMES PATTERSON'One of my favourite writers' KARIN SLAUGHTER'I love Kathy Reichs - always scary, always suspenseful, and I always learn something!' LEE CHILD'Nobody does forensics thrillers like Kathy Reichs. She's the real deal' DAVID BALDACCI'Each book in Kathy Reichs's fantastic Temperance Brennan series is better than the last. They're filled with riveting twists and turns - and no matter how many books she writes, I just can't get enough' LISA SCOTTOLINE'Nobody writes a more imaginative thriller than Kathy Reichs' CLIVE CUSSLER