It was a summer morning in 1982 when soldiers ravaged the village of Chupan Ya, raping and killing women and children. Twenty-three victims are said to lie in the well when Dr. Temperance Brennan and the team from the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation now dig. No records were kept. To their families, the dead are "the disappeared."

The team is packing up for the day when an urgent satellite call comes in. Two colleagues are under attack. Shots ring out, and Tempe listens in horror to a woman's sreams. Then there is silence. Dead silence.

With this new violence, Tempe is asked by the Guatemalan police for her expertise on another case. Four privlidged young women have vanished from Guatemala City in recent months. One is the Canadian's ambassador's daughter. Some remains have turned up in the septic tank. Unfortunately, Tempe knows septic tanks.

Teaming with Special Crimes Investigator Bartolomé Galiano, and with Montreal detective Andrew Ryan, Tempe soon finds herself in a dangerous web that streches far beyond Guatemala's borders. As power, money, greed, and science converge, Tempe must make life-altering choices.

Grave Secrets is powerful entertainment from a crime fiction superstar who combines riveting authenticity with witty, elegant prose.