Three skeletons are found in the basement of a pizza parlour. The building is old, with a colourful past, and Homicide Detective Luc Claudel dismisses the remains as historic: not his case, not his concern...But Forensic Anthropologist Dr Temperance Brennan has her doubts. Something about the bones of these three young women suggests a different message: murder. A cold case, but Claudel's case nonetheless. Brennan is in Montreal to testify as an expert witness at a trial. Digging up more bones was not on her agenda. And to make matters worse, her sometime-lover Detective Andrew Ryan disappears just as Tempe is beginning to trust him. Soon Tempe finds herself drawn ever deeper into a web of evil from which there may be no escape: three women have disappeared, never to return. And Tempe may be next...