Chupan Ya, Guatemala: Dr Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist, is working on one of the most heartbreaking cases of her career: searching the remains of mass graves for the bodies of women and children. No records were kept of the atrocities that took place here. Families and neighbours refer to their lost members as 'the disappeared. As Tempe digs in the cold, damp pit, the soil begins to yield ash and cinders. Its colour changes from mahogany to graveyard black. Her trowel touches something hard. The bone of a child no more than two years old. Something savage happened twenty years ago. And something savage is happening today. Four girls are missing from Guatemala City, one of them the daughter of the Canadian Ambassador. A skeleton is found in a septic tank at the back of a run-down hotel. Only someone with Tempe's expertise can deduce who the victim was and how they died. But her path is blocked. It appears that some people would prefer that Chupan Ya stayed buried. And others want the missing girls kept the same way...