The Bone Collection by Kathy Reichs, 388 pages

In First Bones, a prequel to Reichs's first novel, Deja Dead, she at last reveals the tale of how Tempe became a forensic anthropologist. In this never-before-published story, Tempe recalls the case that lured from a promising career in academia into the grim but addictive world of criminal investigation. The collection is rounded out with three more stories that take Tempe from the low country of the Florida Everglades, where she makes a grisly discovery in the stomach of an eighteen-foot Burmese python, to the heights of Mount Everest, where a frozen corpse is unearthed. No matter where she goes, Tempe's cases make for the most gripping reading.