Always apprehensive about working fire scenes, forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan is called to Washington, DC, to analyze the victims of a deadly blaze and sees her misgivings justified. The devastated building is in Foggy Bottom, a neighborhood with a colorful past and present, and Tempe becomes suspicious about the property’s ownership when she delves into its history. The pieces start falling into place strangely and quickly, and Tempe teams with a new ally, telejournalist Ivy Doyle. Soon the duo learns that back in the ’30s and ’40s the home was the hangout of a group of bootleggers and racketeers known as the Foggy Bottom Gang. Though interesting, this fact seems irrelevant --- until the son of a Foggy Bottom gang member is shot dead at his home in an affluent part of the district. Coincidence? Targeted attacks? So many questions.

Young men --- tourists --- have been disappearing on the islands of Turks and Caicos. Seven years earlier, the first victim was found in a strange location with his left hand hacked off; subsequently, two other visitors vanished without a trace. But recently, tantalizing leads have emerged, and only Temperance Brennan can unravel them. Maddeningly, the victims seem to have nothing in common --- other than the odd places where their bodies turn up, and the fact that none seems likely to have been involved in criminal activity. Do these attacks have something to do with the islands’ seething culture of gang violence? Tempe isn’t so sure. Disturbingly, she discovers evidence that what’s at stake may actually have global significance. Then Tempe herself becomes a target.

Freed from a heavy work schedule, Tempe Brennan is content to dote on her daughter, Katy, finally returning to civilian life from the army. But when mother and daughter meet at Tempe’s place one night, they find a box on the back porch with a very fresh human eyeball in it. GPS coordinates etched into the eyeball lead to a Benedictine monastery where an equally macabre discovery awaits. Soon after, Tempe examines a mummified corpse in a state park. There seems to be no pattern to the subsequent killings uncovered, except that each mimics in some way a homicide that a younger Tempe had been called in to analyze. Could this elaborately staged skein of mayhem be the prelude to a twist that is even more shocking?

On the way to hurricane-ravaged Isle of Palms, a barrier island off the South Carolina coast, Tempe receives a call from the Charleston coroner. The storm has tossed ashore a medical waste container. Inside are two decomposed bodies wrapped in plastic sheeting and bound with electrical wire. Tempe recognizes many of the details as identical to those of an unsolved case she handled in Quebec years earlier. With a growing sense of foreboding, she travels to Montreal to gather evidence. Meanwhile, health authorities in South Carolina become increasingly alarmed as a human flesh-eating contagion spreads. Someone is protecting a dark secret --- and willing to do anything to keep it hidden.

It’s sweltering in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Temperance Brennan, still recovering from neurosurgery following an aneurysm, is battling nightmares, migraines and what she thinks might be hallucinations when she receives a series of mysterious text messages, each containing a new picture of a corpse that is missing its face and hands. Immediately, she’s anxious to know who the dead man is, and why the images were sent to her. A corpse soon turns up, only partly answering her questions. To win answers to the others, including the man’s identity, she must go rogue, working mostly outside the system. But the more Tempe uncovers, the darker and more twisted the picture becomes.

Meet Sunday Night, a woman with physical and psychological scars, and a killer instinct. Sunnie has spent years running from her past, burying secrets and building a life in which she needs no one and feels nothing. But a girl has gone missing, lost in the chaos of a bomb explosion, and the family needs Sunnie’s help. Is the girl dead? Did someone take her? If she’s out there, why doesn’t she want to be found? It’s time for Sunnie to face her own demons --- because they just might lead her to the truth about what really happened all those years ago.

Hazel “Lucky” Strike comes to Temperance Brennan with a tape recording of an unknown girl being held prisoner and terrorized. Strike is convinced the voice is that of 18-year-old Cora Teague, who went missing more than three years earlier. She is also certain that the teenager’s remains are gathering dust in Brennan’s lab. While local legends of eerie nocturnal phenomena and sinister satanic cults abound, it’s a zealous and secretive religious sect that has Brennan spooked and struggling to separate the saints from the sinners.

Years ago, Anique Pomerleau kidnapped and murdered a string of girls in Canada, then narrowly eluded capture. It was a devastating defeat for Dr. Temperance Brennan and police detective Andrew Ryan. Now, Pomerleau has resurfaced in the United States, linked to victims in Vermont and North Carolina. When another child is snatched, the reign of terror promises to continue --- unless Brennan can rise to the challenge and make good on her second chance to stop a psychopath.

Years ago, Anique Pomerleau kidnapped and murdered a string of girls in Canada, then narrowly eluded capture. It was a devastating defeat for Dr. Temperance Brennan and police detective Andrew Ryan. Now, Pomerleau has resurfaced in the United States, linked to victims in Vermont and North Carolina. When another child is snatched, the reign of terror promises to continue --- unless Brennan can rise to the challenge and make good on her second chance to stop a psychopath.

While investigating a mysterious hit-and-run that claimed the life of a teenage girl, Temperance Brennan must also examine a bundle of Peruvian dog mummies confiscated by U.S. Customs. A Desert Storm veteran named Dominick Rockett stands accused of smuggling the objects into the country. Could there be some connection between the trafficking of antiquities and the trafficking of humans?

Temperance Brennan has been asked to examine the corpses of three dead babies in Montreal, while her long-time flame, Detective Ryan, is investigating the infants’ mother. When the woman flees to Edmonton, the investigation is joined by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police sergeant with whom Tempe had an ill-advised fling over a decade earlier. The dissonant team heads to a remote diamond-mining city to pursue an ever more sinister trail.

Ever since Tory and her pals caught the unusual strain of the parvovirus that gave them wolf-like super powers, their lives have been tossed into a storm. But when the funding is slashed for the research facility where their parents work, they need to find the money to rescue it so they can stay together. It seems hopeless --- until Tory hears of a long-lost pirate’s buried treasure.

Just as 200,000 fans are pouring into town for Race Week, a body is found near the Charlotte Motor Speedway. The next day, a NASCAR crew member comes to Temperance Brennan’s office at the Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner to share a devastating story.