Spider bones is the 13th novel by Kathy Reichs

Kathy Reichs

Kathleen Joan Toelle "Kathy" Reichs is an American crime writer, forensic anthropologist and academic . She is a professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, but is currently on indefinite leave...

 in the Temperance Brennan

Temperance Brennan

Temperance Daesee Brennan is a fictional character created by author Kathy Reichs, and is the hero of her crime novel series . She was introduced in Reichs' first novel, Déjà Dead, which was published in 1997...

series.

Plot

John Lowery was declared dead in 1968, the victim of a Huey crash in Vietnam, his body buried long ago in North Carolina. Four decades later, Temperance Brennan is called to the scene of a drowning in Hemmingford, Quebec. The victim appears to have died while in the midst of a bizarre sexual practice. The corpse is later identified as John Lowery. But how could Lowery have died twice, and how did an American soldier end up in Canada?

Tempe sets off for the answer, exhuming Lowery's grave in North Carolina and taking the remains to Hawaii for reanalysis - to the headquarters of JPAC, the U.S. military's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, which strives to recover Americans who have died in past conflicts. In Hawaii, Tempe is joined by her colleague and ex-lover Detective Andrew Ryan and by her daughter, who is recovering from her own tragic loss. Soon another set of remains is located, with Lowery's dog tags tangled amongst them. Three bodies - all identified as Lowery.

And then Tempe is contacted by Hadley Perry, Honolulu's flamboyant medical examiner, who needs help identifying the remains of an adolescent boy found offshore. Was he the victim of a shark attack? Or something much more sinister?

• In the United Kingdom and Australia this novel has been released as "Mortal Remains".