High above, branches scratched against boarded windows, gnarled fingers on plywood blackboards. Inside the old church, just the scrape of my trowel and the hum of a portable generator and heater echoed eerily in the huge space. IF THE BODIES WERE THERE, I COULDN’T FIND THEM. Kathy Reichs’s books are expert and smart with a taut energy, and this is her best plot and writing yet. The suspense is intense, and the world is riveting. Kathy Reichs has returned Tempe to America and put her in the middle of a sinister trafficking ring that’s local and global. Along with the corpses, Tempe investigates the sick moral logic of the mastermind behind the operation.

This is a phenomenally high stakes business where one dead body can save a couple of lives, maybe more. If he does, Tempe will have to juggle him and Detective Galiano, an old flame, who is in town investigating the disappearance of a wealthy young woman. Ryan is in Montreal, though he may come down for a visit. What is going on and who is to blame? The charismatic televangelist who oversees the clinic? The shady doctor who practices there? Or is it the clinic staff? The skeleton leads her to a free street clinic where patients have begun to go missing, and some have wound up dead. She’s the expert they might have called in, but lucky for the police she’s already there. When she stumbles upon a recent skeleton among the ancient bones, she starts asking questions. Tempe Brennan is stuck teaching an archaeology field school for students at UNCC in Charleston, South Carolina. When a recent skeleton among ancient bones raises questions-and danger-forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan is the only one who can solve the case in this “triumphant second appearance” ( Publishers Weekly) from #1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs.

Death du Jour by Kathy Reichs