The Bone Bed

A paleontologist vanishes from a remote Canadian dig site, and the only evidence surfaces in Kay Scarpetta's Boston inbox with no explanation for how it got there. As she investigates the connection between the Canadian disappearance and a pattern of violence closer to home, Scarpetta finds herself increasingly isolated from the people she relies on most: her niece Lucy is evasive, Pete Marino and Benton Wesley are keeping secrets, and an old acquaintance is working to fill the space their silence has created. Book twenty of the Scarpetta series deliberately tests the relationships the franchise has built over two decades.

Kate Reading brings a different register to the character than C.J. Critt established in the earlier entries, and her performance suits the more emotionally complex territory Cornwell explores at this stage of the series. The dinosaur forensics plotline gives Reading some genuinely unusual material to deliver with conviction, and she handles the parallel domestic and professional pressures with equal skill. At nearly thirteen hours, The Bone Bed is for dedicated series readers.