Mike Bowditch Mystery/Thriller Series - by Paul Doiron

Paul Doiron

Paul Doiron, born c. 1965, writes several series of books, all set in Maine.

The Mike Bowditch series follows the career of Game Warden Mike Bowditch. The Joe Pickett series by C.J. Box is similar in that the protagonist in each is a state game warden, a seldom-used law enforcement career in police procedurals. Both wardens have a hard time following directives to stay out of criminal investigations, and I enjoy both series immensely. Being more familiar with the terrain and ecosystem of Maine, I find these perhaps more appealing, but the exotic (to me) setting of the Wyoming mountains also appeals. Both series are excellent. Joe Pickett is better at understanding himself and is generally more mature, while Mike Bowditch has no ability to curb his restless nature or understand why he keeps alienating his girlfriend.

Doiron has won numerous awards for his books. Some of the entries are short stories, and these are indicated in the list.

One of the recurring characters, Charley Stevens, a retired warden who takes Mike under is wing, is a quintessential Mainer. The audiobooks are voiced by Henry Leyva who captures Charley's thick Maine accent and timing to perfection.

There is a fair amount of strong language, some explicit sex, and the level of violence is what one should expect in this type of book.

Recurring characters:
Mike Bowditch, game warden
Kathy Frost, his supervisor and friend
Charley Stevens, retired warden, pilot, friend of Mike
Ora Stevens, Charley's wife
Sarah Harris, Mike's girlfriend at the beginning of the series
Stacey Stevens, daughter of Charley and sometimes girlfriend to Mike
Dani Tate, fellow warden, eventually turned state trooper and sometimes girlfriend to Mike
Billy Cronk, friend of Mike

#1 The Poacher's Son 2010
A timber company has sold its vast holdings to another company. For decades, small inholdings on the many lakes have been leased to individuals and small businesses. Those arrangements are all about to end and many people face devastating business losses and/or must leave the homes they've known.

Mike's father Jack, is accused of killing a young policeman and the representative of the timber company. Although Jack doesn't seem to have a clear motive related to the ending of the leases, he's the best suspect.

Although Mike has been largely estranged from his father since he was nine years old, he's stayed in touch just enough that he does not believe his father to be guilty. Mike tries to dig out additional evidence and follow leads that would show Jack to be innocent.

He's living with a girlfriend, Sarah, who doesn't understand Mike's obsession with involving himself in every lead in the case, especially when he is repeatedly told to back off.

#2 Trespasser 2011
Mike is called to the scene of a car-deer accident, but when he arrives, both the woman and the deer are gone. There is only an abandoned car and blood in the road. He calls the state police to the scene, but the responding officer insists that Mike is overreacting, and the woman just was angry or scared and walked away.

Subsequent finds are reminiscent of a crime committed some years earlier for which a man named Erland Jefferts was convicted and is now in prison for. Mike can't let the questions go, even after he is warned off by his superiors- one of the key aspects of his personality.

In his personal life, Mike continues to try to keep his relationship with Sarah healthy, but he's really clueless as to how to do this.



#3 Bad Little Falls 2012
Because he consistently won't take orders, despite his good record at solving crimes, Bowditch is banished to a remote district "down east" in Maine. There he finds a serious drug problem tied to the economic disaster of the location.

Mike meets Lucas Sewell, who is about 12 years old, who is severely emotionally damaged. He fills notebooks with a stream-of-consciousness journal, keeps to himself, and tries to avoid contact with two young men who bully him. Although his mother's past is totally unstable, she is currently sober and holding down a job, and she fiercely protects Lucas. Mike finds himself drawn to her off-beat personality, despite the fact that her brother is probably engaged in criminal activities.

Mike is trying to settle in to the new area, tending to normal game warden duties. He's also trying to make friends. While having dinner at the home of a man who seems friendly, a knock on the door reveals a young man nearly frozen to death. Outside, the snowstorm has turned into a blizzard, but the frostbitten man insists that his friend is out there in the cold and injured. The group sets in motion an attempt to rescue the injured man.

The ensuing search in the dark, cold snowy night is fraught with questions of identity, suspected lies, and a final chase scene where Lucas is taken hostage.

Despite all the warnings Mike receives to stay away from the troubled Sewell family, he can't seem to help himself. After the hostage crises, Lucas runs away, and Mike believes he's the only one that has a chance to find the boy.

#4 Massacre Pond 2013
Elizabeth Morse is a woman with too much money. She is systematically buying up land in Maine in the hopes of transforming it into a new national refuge. She keeps tight security, and her entire property is fenced and patrolled. Her activities do not have the approval of the locals who see her plans as encroachment on their rights to hunt the area, generate jobs for income, and to own private property. She lives in a huge log mansion with her adult daughter Briar on the estate.

Mike is called to investigate the apparently sensely killing of six moose on her property. Everyone assumes this was done to get back at Morse for her goals. There is also the question of how the shooter got on the property. Mrs. Morse's personal assistant is a California hippy, Leif Woodwind. A friend of Mike's, Billy Cronk, is on the security team. Billy is pretty sure he's going to lose his job over the incident.

When Mike investigates, Morse reveals that she's received multiple death threats because of her land purchases.

Meanwhile, Mike keeps getting cryptic inspirational messages from his mother with no explanation. Then her husband Neil keeps leaving messages that Mike should call him. Mike accepted long ago that Neil has been great for his mother, but he's never gotten along well with his step father.

Mike also feels himself falling for Charley's daughter Stacey, but she's engaged to a young professional named Mark Skillen.

#5 The Bone Orchard 2014


#6 "The Bear Trap"- short story 2014

#7 The Precipice 2015
Two female hikers on the Appalachian Trail go missing. As the search for them continues, it becomes increasingly likely that their disappearance is the result of foul play rather than an accident or them becoming lost.

The story is logical and cleverly points the finger ofsuspicion at numerous people. However, I don't care for crime stories that take place on major hiking trails because people are already frightened to go to the woods without adding stories like this to the mix.

#8 Widowmaker 2016

#9 Knife Creek 2017
Feral boars have strayed from New Hampshire into Maine, and Mike must go shoot them. He's currently living with Stacey, and she skips work so they can go together. They do find the hogs, but they also find the skeletonized body of an infant wrapped in a pink t-shirt.

Mike goes to the nearest house, a rental property, to ask questions, but the two women he meets there are very strange. Mike is sure the younger one is a college co-ed who went missing nearly four years prior and has been presumed dead, murdered.

The policeman who pursued that investigation is closing in on arresting the man he thinks killed her, and when the four years have passed, he can legally arrest his suspect. He is obsessed with the case, and is not happy that Mike is so sure the missing girl is alive.

When Mike and Dani (now a state trooper) go back to the house to follow up, very bad things happen.

Stacey misses so much work that she manages to get herself fired, which is tough to do from a government job. Mike gets promoted to Warden Investigator. He's not about to leave Maine, which is exactly what Stacey wants to do. He finds himself becoming attracted to Dani.

#10 Stay Hidden 2018
Mike has just been promoted to be a Warden Investigator. He is called to the scene of a hunting incident on an island 20 miles off the coast. The community is insular with generations-long feuds between various families. They do not welcome outsiders.

The "incident" involves the shooting of a visitor to the island who was hanging laundry. Apparently a pair of white underwear was mistaken for a deer tail, and the woman is killed. Then the woman's sister arrives on the island.

Mike and several other law enforcement persons investigate. However, all except Mike go back to the mainland with plans to return the next day. However, dense fog rolls in and Bowditch must try to solve the murder on his own.

The plot is very complicated, but the characterization of the locals is especially good. There is also a lesson about the importation of deer to an island that can't support its population.

#11 "Rabid" - short story 2018
This is a story told to Mike by his friend Charley. Mike is in the truck with Charley while the older man delivers a package to a house at the very end of a remote dirt road.

When Charley was young, he was called to the home of a veteran who has a Vietnamese wife. The man has been bitten by a bat. However, he's obsessively controlling and has a fit that Jang has called someone about the bat. As time goes on, Jang tries to research what rabies might do to a person to change them before they died. Ora Stevens learns about this since she volunteers at the local library. When the situation comes to a head, things may not be as they seem.

An excellent short story.

#112 Almost Midnight 2019

#13 "Backtrack" - short story 2019

#14 One Last Lie 2020
Mike has gone to Florida to check a personal reference for a man the Wildlfe Service may hire. All his recommendations were good, but Mike finds it odd that one person is missing from that list. He learns that his suspicions were well-founded. While there, he spends a day with Stacy trying to catch the invasive Burmese Pythons.

He returns to Maine and his friend Charley has gone missing, leaving a cryptic note that Mike finds, but telling Ora nothing. The rest of the book is the tale of Mike hunting for Charley and trying to determine what demons from the past have caused Charley to disappear to try to right an old wrong.

Mike's girlfriend Dani ends up in the hospital with encephalitis, and at the end of the book Stacy decides to move back to Maine. Mike is totally conflicted over which woman means the most to him.

This isn't one of my favorite books in the series. It's really complicated which isn't really the problem, but the reader can never really figure out what's going on and Charley has to do a classic info dump at the end to explain it all.

#15 "The Impostor" - short story 2020
In this short story, a car goes into a lake and the driver drowns. When he is recovered, his ID says that he is Mike Bowditch! But Mike is there, and of course, the man is an impostor. In fact, he's been stopping people using Mike's identity and even broke into a house claiming to be Bowditch. But how did he end up driving into a lake?

#16 Dead by Dawn 2021
This book is a litte different in style from the others. The entire book takes place in one day. The chapters alternate between the daytime hours and the hours of the night that follows it.

Mike agrees to re-inverview a woman of privilege whose husband had drowned. She does not believe it was an accident although there is no evidence that suggests otherwise. However, she believes that he never would have taken off his life vest voluntarily because of his fear of drowning.

The interview leads him to talk to a number of other people, and the encounters become stranger and stranger.

The nighttime half of the chapters begin with spikes being placed in the icy road as he descends a steep hill. They blow all his tires and the truck plunges into the river. The wolf-dog Shadow is with him. These chapters are his desperate attempt to save his own life.

#17 "The Caretaker" - short story 2021
Mike and Charley are visiting on Charley's porch when a car comes in the driveway. This is unusual, because Charley's place is well off the beaten track. A crippled man and his younger, beautiful wife explain that they are having serious problems with a man they hired to be caretaker at their cottage located on another remote lake in the area. The caretaker has committed several acts of what would probably be called malicious mischief, and although no one has been hurt, they are concerned and were told Charley might be willing to help them.

Charley and Mike smell a rat, but they go to investigate anyway.

#18 Hatchet Island 2022

#4 "Skin and Bones" - short story 2022
This is long enough it is almost a novella, but still not a full-length novel.

Again, Charley tells a tale from when he was a young ranger. This memory is triggered by seeing a dead eagle that Mike has in his truck which someone shot.

Charley's story starts with a dead eagle, but is centered on two brothers. The older one is guardian for the younger, a young man who is "skin and bones," and is terrified of his older brother and the man's dog.

#19 Dead Man’s Wake 2023

#20 "Snakebit" - short story 2023

#21 Pitch Dark 2024

#22 Skin and Bones and Other Mike Bowditch Short Stories - a compilation of the short stories 2025

#23Storm Tide, Minotaur Books, 2026

Dirk Pitt Thriller Series - Clive Cussler/ Dirk Cussler

Clive and Dirk Cussler

Clive Cussler, 1931-2020, was not only a novelist, but a real-life undersea explorer. He received numerous awards not only for writing, but for his maritime exploits.

Although the books tend to be highly on the fantastic side, often with alternative history, and almost techo-thrillers, you can be relatively sure the marine science is all based in fact.

The Dirk Pitt novels have a central theme of being underwater thrillers, usually revolving around recovery of some treasure or shipwreck. The series was begun by Clive Cussler who also founded the actual agency called the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) that appears in the books. Several books were co-authored with his son Dirk, who continued the series after his father's death in 2020.

They almost always begin with some real or possible episode in history that then ties in to the present-day plot. And they almost always include a "cameo" appearance of Clive Cussler himself in some small character role.

The books include a fair amount of hardcore fighting, and the plots are usually tied to deep sea explorations or recovery operations.

Recurring characters:
Dirk Pitt
Dirk Pitt, Junior- Dirk's son
Summer Pitt- Dirk's daughter
Hiram Yaeger, tech guru
Al Giordino, underwater technology director
Rudi Gunn, NUMA assistant director
James Sendecker, Admiral US Navy, then US Vice President

#1 The Mediterranean Caper 1973

#2 Iceberg 1975

#3 Raise the Titanic! 1976

#4 Vixen 03 1978

#5 Night Probe 1981

#6 Pacific Vortex! 1983

#7 Deep Six 1984

#8 Cyclops 1986

#9 Treasure 1988

#10 Dragon 1990

#11 Sahara 1992

#12 Inca Gold 1994

#13 Shock Wave 1996
This volume is overly long and the science seems totally suspect, even for a fictional thriller. But there is no end to the thrills.

The book begins with a totally fictional story of a ship transporting convicts from Britain to Austrailia in the 1700s. It founders in a storm and the captain along with a handfull of crew and passengers survives and establishes residence on a small volcanic island. Eventually the captain and ship's carpenter are rescued and taken back to civilization, but the others choose to stay on the island and establish a small population, headed by Highwayman Dorsett and thief Betsy Fletcher. Near the end of the Captain's life, these settlers send him their children to be educated in England. They also send uncut diamonds to pay for that education.

The main story takes up 4 generations later with the most prominent of the Dorsett descendents running his own diamond cartel. He has returned to Gladiator Island (named for the original ship) and is mining the two "pipes," one in each volcano, for the diamonds. He is ruthless and greedy. His three daughters are all Amazons. The youngest gave birth to twin sons out of wedlock, and she alone opposes her father. The father has kidnapped the boys and is using them to manipulate Maeve to do his bidding.

Meanwhile, an unexplained plague has wiped out a whole colony of penguins and also killed most of the people aboard a cruise vessel. Apparently by chance, Maeve who is one of the tour guides, survives. On a nearby ship, oddly enough, one of her older sisters has also survived.

Pitt and NUMA are sent to investigate the event. Pitt and Maeve are attracted to each other.

The "plague" turns out to be engineered by papa Dorsett for reasons of personal gain, and NUMA is determined to save the next target, the city of Honululu.

#14 Flood Tide 1997
This novel is complex, with three major plots going on at the same time. It begins with the sinking of a ship in 1948 that was covertly filled with Chinese treasures that were beging stolen and taken to Formosa (now Taiwan), the Republic of China.

The primary villain is a Chinese businessman named Qin Shang who is the key player in the three plots.

He is involved in the smuggling of thousands of illegal Chinese immigrants into to the USA as part of a larger Chinese plot to take over the US. However, Qin Shang is in it mostly for the money, although he is also completely committed to Chinese world domination.

Dirk Pitt stumbles onto one of Qin Shang's human trafficking operations while he is supposed to be recouperating from the events of Shock Wave. He is aided in his efforts to foil Qin Shang by a gutsy Chinese-American woman who is working undercover for the INS.

The third plot involves another of Qin Shang's enterprises-- an attempt to divert the Mississippi River to a new port under Chinese control.

The fact that it took the high-stakes players in the book so long to figure out that this was Qin Shang's target is a bit unbelievable.

Near the end, the mystery of the sunken vessel with the Chinese treasures is resolved in a surprising way.

#15 Atlantis Found 1999
This begins with many things that I really love in a good thriller- an asteroid strike in Hudson Bay at the end of the last ice age (actually an hypothesis that won't die), an ancient chamber discovered in a mine cave-in, an unknown alphabet.

The story just gets more crazy from there. Don't look for reality, just go with the flow. The Fourth Destiny has been working for decades to take over the world by causing another catastrophe similar to the one that occurred after the pre-historic asteroid strike. Of course Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino are in the middle of the action.

I'll admit to being disappointed that even though there is a graphic with the unknown alphabet, the story doesn't go into any detail about decoding it. The premise is that whatever Atlantis was, it certainly wasn't called that at the time. The book posits that it was a connected series of port cities that traversed the entire globe until the tidal waves caused by the asteroid wiped it out.

As is true in several of the books, they meet "Dad," who is Clive Cussler.

#16 Valhalla Rising 2001

#17 Trojan Odyssey 2003

#18 Black Wind 2004 (with Dirk Cussler)
Black Wind begins with a Japanese submarine being sent to the west coast of the US near the end of World War ii with a payload of biological warfare "bombs," but the sub is sunk without ever delivering the deadly cargo.

Two men stationed at a remote Coast Guard station in Alaska, and their dog, die from cyanide poisoning, and apparently connected to that episode, a reasearch team downwind is exposed to smallpox. When NUMA goes to explore the possible location of the source of these airborne threats, their helicopter is shot down by a Asians on a fishing trawler.

These events and other odd incidents appear to be linked to the Japanese Red Army, a militant group that had be thought long defunct.

However, it turns out that someone else is attempting to recover the lost biological weapons while diverting the blame to Japan. The action goes on and on for 600 pages.

#19 Treasure of Khan 2006 (with Dirk Cussler)

#20 Arctic Drift 2008 (with Dirk Cussler)

#21 Crescent Dawn 2010 (with Dirk Cussler)
This plot is quite believeable. The story begins with a Roman ship being overtaken by pirates in about AD 300. This occurs in the Bosporus Strait. Then there is a second historical scene with a British ship being sunk by persons unknown (although some hints are given) in the English Channel in the early 20th Century.

Dirk and NUMA stumble on the remains of the Roman ship, but run afowl of the Turkish government for disturbing the site. As it turns out, a family of Turkish terrorists is the real problem. As brother and sister are determined to restore their family by any means to the ruling class which they believe is their birthright.

The artifacts that NUMA brought up from the ship are stolen by the terrorists, although it's unclear what actual value they have, even on the black market. However, Al is convinced that a statue they saw, but did not recover is connected to Emperor Constantine.

Meanwhile, connections between the British ship and the artifacts from the Roman ship begin to come to light.

The action is non-stop as usual, and all the plot threads get pulled together in the end.

#22 Poseidon's Arrow 2012 (with Dirk Cussler)

#23 Havana Storm 2014 (with Dirk Cussler)

#24 Odessa Sea 2016 (with Dirk Cussler)

#25 Celtic Empire 2019 (with Dirk Cussler)

#26 Clive Cussler's The Devil's Sea 2021 (by Dirk Cussler)

#27 Clive Cussler's The Corsican Shadow 2023 (by Dirk Cussler)
The story begins during WWII in 1940 when a man appears on the dock at LeHavre, France. HE tries to get aboard a channel ferry for England. When he is denied passage, in desperation he attempts to at least have his suitcases taken. Meanwhile, a German air strike creates chaos.

Jump ahead to the present. Someone is apparently saboutaging metropolitan water supplies. Dirk Pitt is part of an operation to explore and salvage the wreck of a channel ferry. An international businessman is attempting to scrape together enough money to avoid total ruin at the hands of the mafia.

Fairly worthless industrial diamonds are found aboard the wreck that Dirk explored. But the more they look into what should have been on that ferry, the more complicated things become.

And a young female French research scientist who is helping Dirk is have a love affair with a very shady character.

Joe Pickett Mystery/Thriller Series - C.J. Box

C.J. Box

The primary character in this series is Joe Pickett, Wyoming Game Warden for Twelve Sleep County who lives in the small city of Saddlestring.

This is one of my favorite series of thrillers. It's quite violent, but this is nicely balanced by Joe Pickett's reputation as being a "Dudley-Do-Right." Joe is a family man who seeks to make good decisions. His wife Marybeth, and daughters are main characters in the books.

Joe's best friend is an off-beat ex-Special Forces loner named Nate Romanowski. Nate is a falconer who seems to have a special relationship with nature and his birds. Only one of the books really veers into the paranormal, but it hovers around the edges of Nate's personality.

C.J. Box states that he started the series because he wanted to write Wyoming-based stories that genuinely portrayed the attitudes of people in that state.

The series begins with Joe as a rookie warden. He and the characters age and evolve. His children grow up, and his ever-the-nemesis mother-in-law becomes more and more outrageous in her quest for power and money.

I recommend the audio books, read by David Chandler. He is one of the best readers I've come across, and once you get his voicing for the characters in your head, you'll forever hear them when you read the books.

Recurring Characters:
Joe Pickett- Wyoming Game Warden
Marybeth- his wife
Sheridan, April, Lucy- his daughters
Missy- his mother-in-law
Nate Romanowski- master falconer
many other characters appear in several books

#1 Open Season 2001
The first book in the series won more awards than any other first novel, starting with a New York Times notable book award.

Joe has just come to Saddlestring, a rookie warden with a wife and two daughters, and another baby is on the way. They live in small, old state-provided housing, and Marybeth's mother Missy has little use for Joe, believing her daughter could have done much better.

The book begins with Joe trying to ticket Ote Keeley for poaching, and Ote grabbing Joe's gun from him, an embarrassment he will never live down, along with once having ticketed the governor of the state for fishing without a license. A few pages later, that same man turns up at Joe's house one night with a cooler full of animal scat from an unknown creature, and badly injured. Ote dies before Joe finds him sprawled on the woodpile.

When Joe, the warden from the next county, and a deputy from the sheriff's department go to check out Ote's outfitter camp high in the mountains. What they find only raises more questions.

#2 Savage Run 2002
The book begins with an ecoterrorist, Stewie Woods, and his new wife being blown up by an exploding cow. It turns out to be as gruesome as it sounds, but not as ridiculous.

Two hit men have been hired to track down radical eco-terrorists and kill them.

When someone posing as the dead Stewie calls Joe's wife, Joe is both jealous and concerned. Meanwhile, he's discovered that a man with a lot of political clout has poached a massive elk just for the trophy value. True to his character, Joe is outraged and is determined to bring the man to account.

Savage Run is a sheer chasm through a geological split in the Bighorn Mountains. Legend has it that the Cheyenne once fled from enemies across Savage Run by means of a secret route down and up the steep cliffs. Joe must find a way across or perhaps be killed.

In book time, Sheridan is two years older and much more savvy in the ways of the adult world.

#3 Winterkill 2003
This book has several different plots going on which all weave together. Perhaps the primary theme is tension between government and local citizens.

Winterkill opens with Joe observing a man who has apparently gone nuts and is randomly shooting down a herd of elk. When Joe reaches the spot he is stunned to learn that it's Lamar Gardiner, a Forest Service bureaucrat whom he knows. Joe arrests him, but Lamar manages to escape. Joe chases him down as a winter storm begins to unfold only to discover that someone else has brutally murdered him in the few minutes he was out of sight.

When another government employee is killed, investigators from federal agencies show up to find out what's going on, but their ability to interact with local residents is terrible at best, inflammatory at worst.

Meanwhile, a group of outcast transients arrives in town calling themselves the Sovereign Nation, and setting up camp in the National Forest. Among this group is the biological mother of April, Joe and Marybeth's middle daughter. The problem is that their efforts to adopt April have been stuck in the legal system for all the years she's lived with them. April's mother appears with an order from a judge to have April returned to her.

The book culminates in a standoff between the Sovereign Nation and the federals with the backing of the local sheriff.

Sheridan is now eleven and in fifth grade. Missy, Marybeth's mother, is there visiting once again and is up to what will become her modus operendi- to shed a husband she no longer has use for and find a new one with more money and more power. Lucy, much more interested in fashion and trends than Sheridan, finds Missy delightful.

Nate Romanowski is introduced and is suspected of the murders mostly because of his military history and his desire to live off the grid.

#4 Trophy Hunt 2004
This is my least favorite book in the series. It relies heavily on paranormal overtones in the plot which are not something I'm crazy about. There is an infodump at the end when the guilty party confesses. Sometimes you just have to do it that way, but again, not my fav. A young Goth woman sends Joe a pornographic email. It does make sense in the plot, but this trifecta just doesn't appeal to me. Several pieces of physical evidence are never explained. That said, the backbone of the plot is based on a real event that occurred in Montana.

A dead moose is found horribly mutilated. Then some cattle suffer the same fate. The mutilations are not done by wild animals. The cuts are clean and surgical.

Meanwhile, a rogue grizzly bear whose radio collar is malfunctioning, so it can't be tracked properly, turns up in Joe's territory.

Sheridan has portentious dreams and Nate claims he is communicating with the bear and knows there is some higher plot taking place.

Then two humans are found dead with the same kinds of mutilations.



#5 Out of Range 2005
This is one of my favorite in the series.

Following the marriage of Missy (Marybeth's mother) to rancher Bud Longbrake, Joe is sent to the Jackson Hole District to fill in after Game Warden Will Jensen has committed suicide.

But things there are weird. Warden Will had been acting very strange. He thought he was going crazy. But he would not approve the building of a high-end development that was going to cut off an elk migration route.

Joe has an early run-in with an animal advocate group, and then meets the developers who are now pressuring him to approve their plan. At the same time, he's trying to make sense of Will's actions. Then he begins to feel very odd himself.

The wife of the developer seems to be too interested in Joe, and he admits he's attracted.

Back in Saddlestring, a now teenage Sheridan is sparring with Marybeth. Marybeth, feeling uneasy about anonymous calls, asks Nate Romanowski to drop by more often, and Sheridan is uncomfortable with this.

Between bad signals, timing, and a destroyed phone, Joe and Marybeth are having very limited luck at staying in touch.



#6 In Plain Sight 2006
The brother of Ote Keely (see Open Season) is released from prison, and he blames Joe for Ote's death and also for what happened to Ote's wife and April while they were staying with the Sovereign Nation (see Winterkill). John Wayne Keely is out for revenge, but he takes the name of Bill Monroe and gets hired by one of the feuding Scarlett brothers.

The Thunderhead Ranch, belonging to the Scarlett family, is ruled with the iron hand of Opal. But when Opal disappears, her sons Hank and Arlen start battling for control.

Where is Opal? Who will take over the ranch? Sheridan, now fourteen, is best friends with Hank's daughter Julie, and she is caught up in the drama.

Everything comes to a head in a downpour of a storm that causes the Twelve Sleep River to jump its banks and bring normal transportation and communication to a halt.

Missy (now) Longbrake is still belittling Joe for his inability to protect his family from harassment. His boss is micromanaging him, and finally fires him.

#7 Free Fire 2007
After being fired, Joe works as ranch foreman for several months for his new father-in-law. His family has all moved out to the ranch and Missy is delighted they are under her control.

Then Governor Spencer Roulon, a loud and brash, but well-loved character, asks Joe to come back to the agency, but as a special employee of his. And for starters, he wants Joe to investigate the slaughter of four people in Yellowstone National Park. The shooter has taken advantage of a loophole in the law that allows him to go scott free because the small section of the park where the incident takes place does not technically have any way to prosecute him.

The plot gets more and more bizarre. Joe meets an expert on geothermal features who is convinced the volcaon under Yellowstone is about to erupt. He also is forced to come face to face with his own family's past. His youunger brother committed suicide long ago at Yellowstone.

Nate shows up to provide backup for Joe as they close in on the reason for the murders.

#8 Blood Trail 2008
Someone is hunting hunters. It takes three murders before anyone begins to suspect a pattern/serial killer, and Governor Spencer Roulon calls on Joe to look into it. He also hires a world-renowned tracker to help locate the perpetrator. Joe uses his leverage to get Nate released from Federal prison where he's been for a year.

Joe's supervisor Randy Pope, who really has no use for Joe, inserts himself into the investigation, and Joe has to wonder why.

A famous environmental spokesman appears in Saddlestring, and quickly becomes the prime suspect as he is primarily against hunting. The situation quickly gets out of hand and the deaths pile up.

Nate immediately disappers even though he's supposed to be in Joe's custody. Joe knows he's gone back to Alicia Whiteplulme, the Shoshone woman he loves. But the environmentalist and his Shoshone wife are with them, causing Joe to ask himself many questions.

#9 Below Zero 2009
Someone starts texting Sheridan claiming to be her long-thought-dead foster sister April. While skeptical at first, eventually, they all believe it is April and that she is in deadly danger. She's been abducted by two men- one a dying gangster and the other his envioronmental actvist son Robert who sells carbon credits to help people reduce their carbon footprint "below zero."

Robert is more dangerous than the gangster. He took the girl who had been sold to a brothel by her gambling foster father. She admires and trusts him. But it becomes clear that he can be quite ruthless when it comes to exacting revenge on those who have betrayed him.

When the FBI learns the name of the gangster April is with, they become highly interested.

This story has one basic plot instead of several, but the chase to find April and catch Robert and his father is not without surprises.

#10 Nowhere to Run 2010
Joe is on a routine patrol to check hunters when he finds an oddly dressed man fishing in a remote location. The man has too many fish, and when Joe prompts him for his license, the man can't produce it. He says it must be back in camp, so Joe accompanies him and discovers that the man is one of a set of twins, and something seems really off about them.

Joe soon finds out that they have no intention of letting him off the mountain.

This is a chilling tale of people who are attempting to live out of reach of the "government."

#11 Cold Wind 2011

Joe's mother-in-law Missy, has upgraded her marriage to Earl Alden who now owns all of his property, Thunderbird Ranch (from In Plain Sight) and that of her previous husband, Bud Longbrake whose land she got from him due to a pre-nuptual agreement that he failed to read carefully.

Earl has invested in the up-and-coming wind technology. He is rich and satisfied.

But Earl is brutally murdered and his body is found under very strange circumstances. Missy is immediately charge with the murder because the weapon was found in her car.

Joe is totally conflicted about helping her. Despite how little he likes her, she is Marybeth's mother, after all. He also finds it hard to believe that as greedy and conniving as she is that she would actually shoot someone in a face-off. But most of all, Joe wants to find the truth.

She calls in the powerful lawyer, Marcus Hand, to defend her.

#12 Force of Nature 2012
Joe Pickett's friend, Nate Romanowski, has a past in Special Forces, but he ran afoul of most authority figures long ago. He lives off the grid both literally and emotionally. His former commander is out to eliminate all those who know anything about a high-level crime. He figures he can draw Nate out of hiding by targeting his friend Joe Pickett and Pickett's family.

This one reads more like a military thriller than a story about a game warden, but it's really good.

#13 Breaking Point 2013
This story really resonates with me because it is based on one true story of the EPA overreaching to disallow a property owner to build on his lot for reasons of wetlands protection. When I was studying wetlands science, I learned a lot of reasons why these areas should be protected, but also of too many cases where regulations reached the ridiculous stage.

Two armed EPA employees show up in a new subdivision to tell Butch Roberson to stop moving dirt on his land. Not only that, he has to restore it to the condition it was the day before or he will be fined thousands of dollars a day.

The EPA men are shot dead and Butch goes on the run.

Marybeth is trying to partner with a local realtor to restore an historic building in town, but they are totally stymied by EPA regulations concerting asbestos and paint in the old building.

The regional supervisor for the EPA is out of control, but he may not be exactly who he claims.

Lots of gunfire and blowing things up.

#14 Stone Cold 2014
Nate and Joe have equal time in this book. Nate is still on the run from the federal government, and he has been hired by a wealthy man, Templeton, who hires killers to eliminate really bad people. This is similar to what Nate used to do when he was in Special Forces, and in his mind is totally justifiable.

Joe is sent by Governor Rulon to look into what's really going on in the county where Templeton lives. He devises a reason to visit the game warden in that area and stumbles into a situation where the entire county is under the control of Templeton.

Nate has been living off the grid in a line shack, and he meeets Olivia Brannon who works for Templeton. They are perfect for each other.

A third story line has Sheridan, who is now in college, getting really bad vibes about a fellow student who is obsessed with guns- more so than even the Wyoming culture allows. And the boy is odd. He seems to be building up to some sort of bad action.

Mother-in-law Missy is still up to her old tricks.

#15 Endangered 2015
Joe and Marybeth's adopted daughter April runs off with cowboy rodeo hero Dallas Cates. A few months later, April is found in a ditch, near death. She was beaten and dumped. Cates says he didn't do it, but April is in an induced coma and can't tell her story.

This book introduces the entire Cates family who are violent and act crazy. Dallas is the only mostly normal one in the bunch.

When Nate shows up in town to help Joe, he is ambushed, shot, and ends up in the same hosptial as April.

Meanwhile, the Cates clan: Brenda and Eldon, with sons Bull, Timber and Dallas are out to prove to the world that they should not be treated as white trash.

Non-stop action and some unique plot segments.

#16 Off the Grid 2016
This book is mostly about Nate, with Joe showing up at the end to help him.

Nate is living off-grid-- even farther off than usual because he's still wanted by the feds. However, two of them find him and offer to clear his record if he will do one mission for them. He is sent to the Red Desert to find out what's going on at a secret compound.

Meanwhile, Sheridan is cajoled into going on a weekend camping trip by one of her college roommates. No one is quite sure what the purpose of the trip is.

And Joe is sent by Governor Rulon to check on a game warden from a different district.

The three stories converge for an ending that is pure terrorist genre.

#17 Vicious Circle 2017
The Cates family is back. Although they did not all survive Endangered, the ones who did solidly blame Joe Pickett for everything that happened to them and they are out for revenge.

Dallas Cates has just been released from prison and he appears to immediately head back into a life of crime. He manages to escape prosecution for a murder and now he can't be tried for it again although everyone is certain he was guilty.

Nate was cleared of his federal charges, and he's trying to live a civilized life with Olivia. They are operating a "bird abatement business," using falcons to rid areas of nuisance birds. But he's still wild enough to come to Joe's aid when needed.

#18 The Disappeared 2018
Sheridan Pickett is working as a wrangler at a high-end guest ranch. One of the guests failed to return home to England after her summer stay. Her car was never found, and she left behind a business. Foul play is suspected.

The new governor, Colter Allen, wants Joe to look into it. He seems to be asking Joe to be his "range rider" as Joe did for Governor Rulon, but Allen is much more politically motivated, and Joe is not very enthusiastic.

Meanwhile, someone is bribing the night operator of a sawmill furnace that burns waste sawdust. The pickup comes in the early morning hours and throws things in the furnace to be burned with no trace due to the intense heat.

The employees of the guest ranch are cleared from suspicion. Joe asks for help from his friend Nate. Nate does come, but he's spinning a consipracy theory involving the local wind farm that Joe doesn't want to hear.

The governor fires Joe when Joe actually gets close to solving the mystery. Nate was at least partly right, Joe was sent on this mission to fail. But Joe figures it will take at least three days for the paperwork to come through so he keeps pressing toward the solution.

The book ends in a cliffhanger with Joe no longer having a job.

#19 Wolf Pack 2019
This is without a doubt the most violent of all the books in this series. The Wolf Pack is a gang of thugs from the Sinaloa drug cartel and they are coming back to Twelve Sleep County to kill a man who is in the witness protection program.

Meanwhile, Katleyn the game warden in the neighboring county asks for Joe's help to track down the pilot of a drone that is running wildlife to death. Katleyn and Joe keep bumpong up against dead ends when they can't find out any information about the owner.

Nate has settled into civilized life and is running a nuisance bird abatement business with the help of his love, Liz Brannon.

The brutal deaths keep piling up as the gang fulfills its mission.

#20 Long Range 2020
Someone takes a long-distance sniper shot at Judge Hewlitt in his own home. At the last minute, the judge leans over and the bullet hits his wife, critically injuring her.

Joe is called back from helping to find a rogue bear in Jackson county that has killed an outfitter. The new sheriff is a politically motivated young man who is also fairly incompetent. But Joe and Nate begin to find clues that lead to the shooter.

Then the county prosecutor is targeted, but the shooter misses.

The sheriff receives a tip that Nate was the guilty party, and he throws Romanowski in jail. Nate handles this less well than ever since he's unable to be home to protect Liv and his new baby, Kestrel, from threats that have been made against him.

#21 Dark Sky 2021
Colter Allen, governor of Wyoming, requests (orders) that Joe guide a social media mogul on a hunting trip. Allen hopes that Steve2, the computer giant, will locate a data processing center in Wyoming out of gratitude. A local, Brock, is to serve as outfitter.

Joe is not happy to be placed in this political position of trying to guarantee that this man gets a trophy elk. His concerns quickly shift focus as it becomes clear that someone is trying to kill Steve2.

#22 Shadows Reel 2022
Joe is called out to take care of a dead moose in a swamp on someone's ranch. Turns out the rancher didn't go close enough to discover it was a human body, tortured and burned.

Meanwhile, Marybeth is concerned because someone left an unmarked package at the library. She happened to see the man sneaking to the door and leaving it after hours. This turns out to be an historical photo album with disturbing implications.

Nate and Geronimo Jones are off on their own expedition in search of Axel Solidad, the falcon thief.

#23 Storm Watch 2023
Joe is called out to euthanize a badly injured elk that survived a collision with a car. A winter storm is brewing. He does find the elk, but he also finds a somewhat mysterious building in the forest with large fans in the end. Shockingly, there is a person, deceased who was apparently forced into the fan until his skull was cut open.

Joe is forced to leave the body in order to get back to his truck before he can't seen anything in the snow. He notifies the sheriff. When the sheriff gets there, there is no longer a body.

Geronimo Jones visits Nate with a plan for how they can earn enough money to rebuild Nate's falcon stable, and things seem to be improving for Nate. But then he is approached by a man who wants him to join a rogue militia group.

The sheriff, as so many before, blames Joe for finding bodies and making more work for him. But the bodies just seem to keep appearing, and Joe is forced to find out what's going on to protect himself.

#24 Three-Inch Teeth 2024
The young man who has been courting Sheridan is attacked and killed by a grizzly bear. While the forensic team is collecting evidence, one of their own is mauled by the same bear.

A group of women show up who are advocating for the rights of what they believe to be this same bear. They say that she is justifyably seeking revenge for the killing of her cubs.

In a parallel plot, Dallas Cates is released from prison and assembles a team of people who are determined to take their own revenge against the people whom Dallas blames for his troubles, including Joe. The stories of the bear and Dallas' strategy for eliminating people become strangely intertwined.

Warning; the book ends on a very low note.

#25 Battle Mountain 2025
An old outfitter is scouting for elk herds prior to the season when he will guide hunting parties. He's training an assistant. They are ambushed and captured by a team of commandoes in camoflauge.

The new assistant turns out to be Governor Roulon's son-in-law, and Joe is called in on special duty to find out what has happened to the men.

The side story involves the continuing search by Nate and Geronimo Jones to exact revenge on Axel Soledad.

The culmination of the story is on Battle Mountain, a totally fictitious location, but it is provided with a plausible history for the name.

There is only one little paranormal episode between Nate and a falcon.

#26 The Crossroads (Putnam, February 2026)
This book is certainly at a crossroad of the series. It begins with Joe being ambushed at a junction of a public road with three private lanes. Which one was he about to visit? All three owners have reasons to be unhappy with Joe's decisions as a game warden. Joe is shot in the head, and spends most of the rest of the book in a coma.

His daughters set about to find out what happened to their dad. April has been working as a private investigator for the past year, and she brings knowledge of how to uncover important facts. Sheridan brings her usual grit, and Lucy is the people person who can coax information from locals.

Marybeth is involved via her research, although she's spending most of her time at the hospital, waiting by Joe's bedside.

Joe does regain consciousness, but we are left wondering if he will finally take a less active role in the rough-and-tumble world hes inhabited for 20 years, or if he'll be back full force, or if this is the finale of the series.

Bullish on Business Interview with Rose Odette

I was recently interviewed by Rose Odette of "Bullish on Business." We met at a vendor event, and she invited me to participate in her regular video program.



We enjoyed chatting about everything from hiking to writing to faith.

See 2019 Interview with me on Indie Reads TV

Mystery Series- Kay Scarpetta

Patricia Cornwell

The primary character in this series is Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia, based in Richmond. Forensic science and the evidence which can be uncovered by an autopsy are the forces driving the plots.

Kay's neice, Lucy, is a primary character. Through the series, she grows from a tween into a brilliant and dangerous woman. Her forte is computers, but she manages to get into all kinds of scrapes. Her mother, Dorothy, is forever jealous of Aunt Kay, because Lucy really prefers Kay. Dorothy is narcissistic and man crazy. She and Kay have numerous fights. Their mother usually takes Dorothy's side. This family tension drives many of the side plots.

Scarpetta's love life evolves throughout the series.

I like this series a lot for the solid forensics with the dysfunctional relationships as counterpoint. Lucy is a favorite supporting role.

Recurring Characters:
Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner for Virginia
Lucy, her neice
Dorothy, her sister
Pete Marino, policeman
Benton Wesley, FBI Special Agent
Temple Gault, archenemy criminal, appears in several books

#1 Postmortem 1990

#2 Body of Evidence 1991

#3 All That Remains 1992

#4 Cruel and Unusual 1993
As this book begins, a death row inmate is about to be electrocuted. His sentence is not commuted, and the body comes to Scarpettas morgue. A minor accident involving some broken bottles of formalin distracts the autopsy assistant, and fingerprints of the dead man are not taken.

Then a fingerprint that matches the dead man's file turns up at a new murder scene. While trying to sort this out, they discover that all official records of the prints of this criminal have disappeared from the police files.

Lucy comes to visit her aunt and quickly demonstrates how easily someone who knew how could make changes in the database records. This is the first book where we see how adept Lucy is with computers.

When more murders occur with confusing evidence, the press begins a campaign to smear Scarpetta and make it look like she hasn't been doing her job.

#5 The Body Farm 1994
The Body Farm is a real place, correctly called the University of Tennessee's Forensic Anthropology Center. There research is done to determine how bodies decompose under various environmental conditions. It plays a key role in determining the location where a murder occurred in this book.

Scarpetta, Marino, and Wesley are called to North Carolina as a special task force to help solve the murder of a young girl in a small town. The crime seems to mirror several committed in Cruel and Unusual. The harder the trio hunts for clues the more perplexing the situation becomes.

Marino is a heart attack waiting to happen, and he becomes involved with the mother of the murdered girl. Kay and Benton discover they are attracted to each other, despite Benton's seemingly placid marriage.

Lucy gets her first job with the FBI, working on a program to track violent criminals. But soon it appears that Lucy has gone rogue and broken into the FBI's entire database to sell espionage secrets.

#6 From Potter's Field 1995

#7 Cause of Death 1996

#8 Unnatural Exposure 1997

#9 Point of Origin 1998

#10 Scarpetta's Winter Table 1998

#11 Black Notice 1999

#12 The Last Precinct 2000

#13 Blow Fly 2003

#14 Trace 2004

#15 Predator 2005

#16 Book of the Dead 2007

#17 Scarpetta 2008

#18 The Scarpetta Factor 2009

#19 Port Mortuary 2010

#20 Red Mist 2011

#21 The Bone Bed 2012

#22 Dust 2013

#23 Flesh and Blood 2014

#24 Depraved Heart 2015

#25 Chaos 2016

#26 Autopsy 2021

#27 Livid 2022

#28 Unnatural Death 2023

#28 Identity Unknown 2024

#30 Sharp Force 2025

Novels Featuring Twins

Sons of Fortune by Jeffrey Archer. Archer is masterful at writing stories that span multiple generations or at least long periods of time and exploring how the people change through the years. In Sons of Fortune, we have the classic twins separated at birth plot. A set of fraternal male twins and a single male birth happen at the same hospital around 1948. The single baby boy dies and a nurse switches the dead baby with one of the twins so each family can have at least one baby.

The boys grow up in different socio-economic strata although both go to private schools when they become teens. Their paths keep creeping closer and closer to each other, but will they every meet, and even then, will they learn the truth of their history.

Mystery Series- Temperance Brennan

Dr. Kathy Reichs

Kathy Reichs, PhD. is herself a forensic anthropologist, one of only 100 certified in the United States. Out of this career, she writes both non-fiction on the topic, and fiction. Her book series featuring Temperance Brennan inspired the television series Bones. Temperance is the forensic anthropologist for North Carolina who also travels to Quebec regularly as part of her job.

The Fox TV show does not follow the books very closely. "Bones" is possibly on the autism spectrum, which is not at all true of the character in the books.

The books are authentic police proceedurals. Some unnecessary language. Graphic descriptions of dead bodies, particularly the ones in bad enough condition to call in a forensic anthropologist. Overall, I give the series high marks. Temperence is professional but real. There is a small amount of personal interaction so that we understand who she is and that she has some flaws. There are a lot of dream sequences in the books. Sometimes the dreams help Tempe find a clue in a case, sometimes they are just bizarre. There is a little overuse of the trite "something nagging that the protagonist can't quite remember" plot motif.

Series location:
Primarily Charlotte, NC, and Montreal, Quebec. Brennan splits her time between these two locations as needed, and is occasionally called to other cities.

Recurring Characters:
Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist
Katy, her daughter
Harry (Harriet), her sister
Andrew Ryan, fellow detective and sometimes lover

#1 Déjà Dead 1997
Temperence Brennan works for the Laboratoire de Médecine Légale in Montreal. Utility workers uncover some bones which come to Brennan for analysis. They turn out to be human, and she tentatively connects them with other skeletons which were found with one hand cut off. But the police aren't seeing the connection.

Before long, another similar body is found, but there are also differences. A hidey-hole apartment of a sleazebag is discovered, but he escapes. A map on the wall leads Tempe to yet another skeleton.

Meanwhile, Tempe's friend Gabby fears she is being stalked, and Tempe also receives threats.

For a first novel in a series, this one is full-bodied.

#2 Death du Jour 1999
The book is split between Montreal and Charlotte, NC. In Montreal, a house fire leads to the discovery of six bodies, none of which seem to have much connection to each other. The house is owned by a man in Belgium and is rented to various people. Two of the victims are infant twin boys. Four of the victims did not die as a result of the fire, including the twins. Brennan is particularly moved by their deaths.

Oddly enough, a trail of telephone calls from the house where the fire occurred leads to another house in North Carolina which is occupied by a seemingly benign but secretive group. They don't quite rise to cult status, but they are strange. They deny all knowledge of the calls and of knowing any of the victims in Canada.

Then, one young woman with a baby of her own, reaches out to Tempe for help.

#3 Deadly Décisions 2000
Tempe is working in Montreal, and the Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs are escalating a gang war. A young girl is caught in the crossfire and killed. Tempe is livid about the loss of innocent life.

An informant leads the police to the old graves of two gang members in exchange for favors. At the same site, the skull and two leg bones of an other young girl are found. Tempe really wants to identify this girl, and she has a chance at it, despite the time since death because the girl had a shunt in her skull for hydrocephalus.

Her nephew Kit, Harry's son, comes to visit and he is enamored with the motorcycle culture. He makes friends with a reporter that Tempe really dislikes. Is the reporter up to no good, and is Kit more involved than having a casual interest?

#4 Fatal Voyage 2001

#5 Grave Secrets 2002
Brennan is on loan to Guatemala to do forensic examinations on a mass grave. The government carried out a genocidal program against the Mayans there from 1962 to 1992.

While she's busy recovering skeletons of people who are mostly from a single family line, she's requested to help with a police case where a leg bone with blue jeans have been found to be clogging the outlet from a large septic tank at a hotel. She spends a totally nasty day recovering most of the rest of the dismembered skeleton from the tank's sections.

Before she's even had a chance to examine it properly, a local official rudely removes the bones from her jurisdiction.

Four local teenage girls are missing, and she is supposed to figure out if the skeleton might be one of those without even having the bones any more, so she gets creative.

A journalist is stalking her, trying to get an interview about the genocide. Two of her co-workers are ambushed. There is pretty much non-stop action in this book.

My primary question is how could large chunks of a body have gotten caught in a septic tank without it being uncovered? When the tank is dug up with a backhoe to recover the pieces there is no suggestion that it was recently opened. I can't imagine a drain hole large enough to accommodate an unbroken skull. A storm drain, might work, but these don't go through a septic tank.

#6 Bare Bones 2003
Temperance is examining the sparse remains of a dead newborn baby that was burned in a wood stove. She's contemplating the personal repurcussions since she knows the baby's grandfather, when she is called to a site where there are a large number of bones buried in plastic bags. These turn out to be bear bones- of multiple bears. Almost all bear bones, except for some bird bones.

Then she has to go to the crash site of a small plane where the two occupants were badly burned. When she finally gets back to the bears... uh oh... there are some human hand bones too.

The quest to find out what the plane was doing when it crashed leads the investigation to an old house in the country with a privy full of more bones. Do any of the bones connect?

#7 Monday Mourning 2004

#8 Cross Bones 2005

#9 Break No Bones 2006

#10 Bones to Ashes 2007
Tempe is in her Montreal office and is working her usual busy schedule of examining old bones, skeletons, and damaged bodies, when she hears of a skull and its skeleton which are sitting in someone's office because they seem to be too old to trace. She requests they be sent to her.

They require extensive cleaning, but the more she examines them, the more she suspects they might belong to a childhood friend of hers who went missing at age 13. This seems a stretch of coincidence, but the possibility stirs up all the old memories and questions as to what happened to Evangeline. The friend was Acadian, and that is where these bones were found.

She convinces the police to open a cold case investigation which leads to child porn, trafficking, and unexpected answers about her friend.

#11 Devil Bones 2008

#12 206 Bones 2009

#13 Spider Bones also titled Mortal Remains 2010

#14 Flash and Bones 2011

#15 Bones are Forever 2012

#16 Bones of the Lost 2013

#17 Bones Never Lie 2014
Tempe's old nemisis Anique Pomerleau, the only one who ever got away, is back. Young girls are going missing and their bodies turn up a few days later, posed and not mutilated or sexually assaulted.

Tempe and Ryan check into a number of other cold cases that seem to fit the profile, and with the help of Tempe's mother doing volunteer computer research, begin to see a pattern forming. But Mama has cancer and is refusing treatment.

There is a huge plot twist in the middle.

And Ryan asks Tempe to marry him.

#18 Bones on Ice a novella 2015
A high society woman who has influence with all the right people wants Brennan to examine the body of her daughter Brighton who died three years previously while summitting Mount Everest. The death did not occur anywhere near Charlotte NC, but the family wants answers, although the questions are uncertain.

The body is badly battered, possibly having fallen at death and then from being transported down the mountain in a canvas sled.

None of the other people in the climbing party have any answers. They all reached the base camp and Brighton did not.

Brennan begins studying the body and discovers a number of curious facts.

#19 Speaking in Bones 2015
A large, coarse woman comes to Brennan. Her name is Hazel Strike, but her friends call her "Lucky." She's involved with online volunteer groups that try to find missing persons when the police have given up on the cases, or were never involved in the first place.

Lucky is there to discuss Cora Teague who disappeared over three years ago. Her family refuses to report her as missing, claiming she ran off with a boyfriend. The trouble is, she had no known boyfriend.

Also, Lucky is in possession of a keychain voice recorder that she claims to have found at the location of a recent partial, unidenified body dump. She simply wants Tempe to consider the possibility that the new corpse might be Cora.

The case gets more and more bizarre as Cora's brother turns up in odd places as they search the hills of North Carolina for clues.

#20 The Bone Collection 2016

#21 A Conspiracy of Bones 2020

#22 The Bone Code July 2021

#23 Cold, Cold Bones July 2022

#24 The Bone Hacker August 2023
Tempe is working in Montreal when a few scraps of a body are recovered, hacked up by the propellor on a large boat. It is assumed this is a man who jumped off a bridge. A few days later, the rest of the body washes up, but the many died from a gunshot wound. A tattoo identifies him as part of a gang from the islands of Turks and Caicos. For some reason the Medical Examiner from the islands flies immediately to Montreal.

This woman, Tiersa Musgrove, convinces Tempe to return to the Turks and Caicos with her to study a strange set of murders where each victim has had the left hand cut off. There they are sidetracked by a boat found floating with five dead bodies on board.

Continually sidetracked by other cases, Tempe always manages to get back to the mutilated bodies, although she is stymied by the lack of a good microscope and unhelpful people.

This case is a bit like a classic mystery at the end with a whole chapter to explain parts of the story that the reader has not yet heard enough about to understand.

#25 Fire and Bones August 2024
While working on her normal caseload in North Caroline, Tempe is asked by her daughter to grant an interview with a journalist friend in D.C. Brennen isn't thrilled, but agrees for Katy's sake and drives to the capital.

The next day there is a fire in an older building in D.C. that was being used as an illegal rental property. Four people die in the fire. Tempe helps with recovery, and discovers a fifth body in a forgotten sub-basement that had nothing to do with the fire, but dates from about the 1940s.

Soon another building just blocks away burns, and a man is shot in a separate incident. With some research, it is discovered that there may be a connection beteween all these incidents, but not the body in the basement whose identity cannot be determined.