Four stories starring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan include "First Bones," which reveals how she got her start in the lab, and "Bones on Ice," in which she must identify a mummified corpse found on Mount Everest.

Chicago forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan is accused of mishandling the autopsy and case of a missing heiress from Montreal-- an investigation that becomes more complicated when two more bodies of elderly women are found in Montreal, and Tempe faces the very real possibility that a colleague has sabotaged her work in the lab.

When Charlotte police discover the body of a teenage girl along a desolate stretch of two-lane highway, Temperance Brennan fears the worst. The girl's body shows signs of foul play. Inside her purse police find the ID card of a prominent local businessman, John-Henry Story, who died in a horrific flea market fire months earlier. Was the girl an illegal immigrant turning tricks? Was she murdered? Tempe soon finds herself at the center of a conspiracy...

"Hazel 'Lucky' Strike--a strident amateur detective who mines the Internet for cold cases--comes to Brennan with a tape recording of an unknown girl being held prisoner and terrorized. Strike is convinced the voice is that of eighteen-year-old Cora Teague, who went missing more than three years earlier. Strike is also certain that the teenager's remains are gathering dust in Temperance Brennan's lab. Brennan has doubts about working with a self-styled...

When an Orthodox jew is found shot to death in Montreal, Temperance Brennan is called in to examine the body and figure out the puzzling damage to the corpse. Unexpectedly, a stranger slips her a photograph of a skeleton and assures her the picture is the key to the victim's death. Before she knows it, Tempe is involved in an international mystery as old as Jesus, a mystery that could rewrite 2000 years of religious history.

When Temperance Brennan is called to investigate the death of a man who drowned in the midst of a bizarre sex act, she knows the case will be anything but ordinary. However, when the victim is identified as John Lowery, a man who was reportedly killed in a helicopter crash in Vietnam over 40 years ago, Tempe sets off to Hawaii to find some answers. There, Tempe discovers yet another set of remains supposedly belonging to John Lowery.

"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....