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Author: Kathy Reichs, 2012.
Genre: Forensic Crime Fiction.
Other Details: Hardback. 296 pages.
A young woman turns up at a Montreal hospital seeking treatment. When her doctor sees evidence of a recent birth, the authorities are contacted though the woman disappears. Then the police find bloody towels discarded outside the woman's given address and Brennan in her role as forensic anthropologist to the province of Quebec is called to the scene. There she makes the horrific discovery of a recently dead newborn and the decomposed bodies of two other infants. Her autopsies reveal the babies died of unnatural causes and the hunt is on for the young woman, who has a number of aliases.
Tempe is teamed with her former lover homicide detective Andrew Ryan and Ollie Hasty of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a man she had been briefly involved with years previously. The trio travel to Edmonton and later Yellowknife, a remote diamond mining community in the Northwest Territories in search of the truth. There they encounter more secrets, more bodies and naturally mortal danger.
I've been reading the Temperance Brennan series from its inception and always look forward to the next as an annual treat.This was another exciting case for Brennan. It proved a quick read though the subject matter of infanticide is quite disturbing. As always there is a wealth of forensic material as befits Reichs' real life profession as a forensic anthropologist and a nice balance between the case and ongoing character arcs.
