Break No Bones (Temperance Brennan, #9)

"It's the second-to-last day of archaeological field school. Dr Temperance Brennan's students are working on a site of prehistoric graves on Dewees, a barrier island north of Charleston, South Carolina, when a decomposing body is uncovered in a shallow grave off a lonely beach. The skeleton is articulated, the bone fresh and the vertebrae still connected by soft-tissue ; the remains are encased in rotted fabric and topped by wisps of pale, blond hair - a recent burial, and a case Tempe must take. Dental remains and skeletal gender and race indicators suggest that the deceased is a middle-aged white male - but who was he? Why was he buried in a clandesdine grave? And what does the unusual fracture of the sixth cervical vertebra signify?" -- back cover.