Bones Never Lie (with bonus novella Swamp Bones)

Kathy Reichs is the author of eighteen New York Times bestselling novels and the co-author, with her son, Brendan Reichs, of six novels for young adults. Like the protagonist of her Temperance Brennan series, Reichs is a forensic anthropologist-one of fewer than one hundred ever certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology. A professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, she is a former vice president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and serves on the National Police Services Advisory Council in Canada. Reichs's own life, as much as her novels, is the basis for the TV show Bones, one of the longest-running series in the history of the Fox network.

9780345544018 excerpt Reichs / BONES NEVER LIE Chapter 1 I received the message first thing Monday morning. Honor Barrow needed me at an unscheduled meeting. Not what I wanted, with cold germs rolling up their sleeves in my head. Nevertheless, coming off a weekend of Sudafed, Afrin, and lemon-honey tea, instead of finishing a report on a putrefied biker, I joined a billion others slogging uptown in rush-hour traffic. By seven-forty-five, I was parked at the back of the Law Enforcement Center. The air was cool and smelled of sun-dried leaves-I assumed. My nose was so clogged, I couldn't sniff out the difference between a tulip and a trash can. The Democrats had held their quadrennial soirée in Charlotte in 2012. Tens of thousands came to praise or protest and to nominate a candidate. The city had spent $50 million on security, and as a result, the ground floor of the Law Enforcement Center, once an open lobby, now looked like the bridge of the starship Enterprise. Circular wooden barrier. Bulletproof glass. Monitors displaying the building's every scar and pimple, inside and out. After signing the register, I swiped my security card and rode to the second floor. Barrow was passing as the elevator hummed to a stop and opened. Beyond him, through the door he was entering, arrows on a green background directed Crimes Against Property to the left, Crimes Against Persons to the right. Above the arrows, the hornets'-nest symbol of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. "Thanks for coming in." Barrow barely broke stride. "No problem." Except for the kettledrums in my head and the fire in my throat. I followed Barrow through the door, and we both turned right. Detectives crowded the corridor in both directions, most in shirtsleeves and ties, one in khaki pants and a navy golf shirt featuring the intrepid wasp logo. Each carried coffee and a whole lot of firepower. Barrow disappeared into a room on the left marked by a second green sign: 2220: Violent Crimes Division. Homicide and assault with a deadly. I continued straight, past a trio of interview rooms. From the nearest, a baritone bellowed indignation in strikingly inharmonious terms. Ten yards down I entered a room identified as 2101: Homicide Cold Case Unit. A gray table and six chairs took up most of the square footage. A copy machine. File cabinets. White erasable board and brown corkboards on the walls. In the rear, a low-rise divider set off a desk holding the usual phone, mug, withered plant, and overfilled in- and out-baskets. A window threw rectangles of sunlight across the blotter. Not a soul in sight. I glanced at the wall clock. 7:58. Seriously? Only I had arrived on time? Head pounding and slightly peeved, I dropped into a chair and placed my shoulder bag at my feet. On the table were a laptop, a cardboard carton, and a plastic tub. Both containers bore numbers on their covers. The ones on the tub were in a format familiar to me: 090430070901. The file dated to April 30, 2009. A single call had come in at 7:09 a.m. The numbering system on the carton was different. I assumed the case was from another jurisdiction. A bit of background. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department had roughly five hundred unsolved murders dating back to 1970. Recognizing that this was lot of bodies and a lot of folks waiting for justice, in 2003 the CMPD established a cold case unit. Honor Barrow, twenty years at the murder table, had run the CCU since its inception. The other full-timers included a police sergeant and an FBI agent. A volunteer review team composed of three retired FBI agents, a retired NYPD cop, a civilian academic, and a civilian engineer provided support in the form of pre-investigation triage and analysis. The cold case unit regulars gath