And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying TempeвЂ™s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in вЂњDrugs.

government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. But the hints of other crimes TempeвЂ™s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.вЂ™s splenetic outbursts. Heavner isnвЂ™t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. Nettled by several errors in HeavnerвЂ™s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her departmentвЂ™s earlier practice ( The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. The two former agents traverse the countryside, spinning endless hypotheses before the onset, at last, of a jerrybuilt conclusion that begs credibility and offers few surprises.ДЄssembly-line legal thriller: flat characters, lame scene-setting, and short but somehow interminable action: a lifeless concoction.ДЄnother sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.ДЄ week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if itвЂ™s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Will they join forces and find each other kind of, well, appealing? But of course. Who set him up? Who did a chambermaid at RitterвЂ™s hotel blackmail? And who is the man in the Buick shadowing KingвЂ™s and MaxwellвЂ™s every move? King is a handsome, rich divorce, Maxwell an attractive marathon runner. The widow (one of the few characters here to have any life) says she never called Bruno. What distracted King at the rally? Bruno had claimed his friendвЂ™s widow called him to the funeral home. Though separated by time, the cases are similar and leave several questions unanswered. Now Maxwell, too, gets in dutch with the SS. Plot two begins eight years later when another Secret Service Agent, Michelle Maxwell, lets presidential candidate John Bruno out of her sight for a few minutes at a wake for one of his close associates. He retires and goes on to do often tedious but nonetheless always lucrative work (much like a legal thriller such as this) at a law practice. King takes out the killer, but thatвЂ™s not enough to save his reputation with the Secret Service. The first begins when something distracts Secret Service Agent Sean King and during that вЂњsplit second,вЂќ presidential candidate Clyde Ritter is shot dead. Two defrocked Secret Service Agents investigate the assassination of one presidential candidate and the kidnapping of another.Д«aldacci ( The Christmas Train, 2002, etc.) sets out with two plot strands.

In a split second