Winter has come to North Carolina and, with it, a drop in crime. Freed from a heavy work schedule, Tempe Brennan is content to dote on her daughter Katy, finally returned to civilian life from the army. But when mother and daughter meet at Tempe's place one night, they find a box on the back porch. Inside: a very fresh human eyeball.

GPS coordinates etched into the eyeball lead to a Benedictine monastery where an equally macabre discovery awaits. Soon after, Tempe examines a mummified corpse in a state park, and her anxiety deepens.

There seems to be no pattern to the subsequent killings uncovered, except that each mimics in some way a homicide that a younger Tempe had been called in to analyze. Who or what is targeting her, and why?

Could this elaborately staged scene be the prelude to a twist that is even more shocking? Tempe is at a loss to establish the motive for what is going on...and then her daughter disappears.

"The crowning achievement of a master storyteller" (Nelson DeMille), Cold, Cold Bones is a novel of revenge--one in which revisiting the past may prove the only way to unravel the present.