#1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with a twisty, unputdownable thriller featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, who finds herself enmeshed in a series of grisly animal killings that turn into something far more sinister.
Small creatures— a rat, a rabbit, a squirrel— have been turning up throughout Charlotte, North Carolina, mutilated and displayed in the same bizarre manner. But one day, as Tempe is relaxing at home alongside her aimless, moody great-niece Tory, she’ s diverted by a disturbing call. Now, it seems, the perp is upping the ante. This find is larger. Could the remains be human?
Tempe visits the scene and discovers that the victim is a dog. Someone’ s pet. As one who has always found animal cruelty deeply abhorrent, Tempe vows to help apprehend the person responsible for the killings, and due to Tory’ s especially layered knowledge of animal behavior, the young woman turns out to be a valuable ally in the hunt for answers. Oddly, Tempe discovers that semi-retired homicide detective Erskine “ Skinny” Slidell is equally outraged and committed. Needing a better understanding of possible motives, Tempe and Skinny seek input from a forensic psychologist. The doctor has no definitive answer but offers several possibilities, warning that the escalating pattern of aggression suggests even more macabre discoveries— and that the perp’ s focus may soon shift to humans.
And then it happens. A woman is found disfigured and posed in a manner that mimics the earlier killings.
As Tempe and Slidell follow the horrifying clues to a shocking conclusion, they’ re forced to confront an increasingly terrifying question: “ What is pure evil? ”
