Dr. Bill Brockton—founder of the University of Tennessee's macabre Body Farm—finds himself pulled into his highest-profile case ever: identifying the remains of a pilot killed in a plane crash outside San Diego. Are the charred bones indeed those of Richard Janus, a maverick celebrity humanitarian? And was the nighttime crash an accident, a suicide—or a murder?
Brockton wrestles with the case, unaware that a cataclysmic storm is gathering. He's landed in the middle of a nasty political battle, and the future of his research facility is called into question. Reeling from these blows, he receives a gruesome threat from a killer who nearly murdered the Brocktons more than a decade before. But worse is to come: from his beloved wife, Kathleen, Brockton gets the most shocking news of all.
Will the legendary Dr. Bill Brockton be able to weather the onslaught . . . or will it push him beyond his breaking point?