Flash and Bones - Kathy Reichs

In a refuse dump next to the Charlotte racetrack, a flash of lightning illuminates a hand reaching out of a barrel of asphalt.

There's not much that can shock Dr Tempe Brennan, forensic anthropologist, but even she finds the sight of the hand macabre. And with race week just a day away, she's under pressure to find answers and clear the area before thousands of NASCAR fans arrive. But before she can carry out proper examination, the FBI confiscate and destroy the body with no explanation. Infuriated, Tempe is determined to find answers, so when a young NASCAR engineer comes to her with a story about his sister who disappeared with her boyfriend twelve years before, she decides to try and find answers.

Digging deeper into the mystery, Tempe comes up against the Patriot Posse, a shadowy right-wing group whose dubious politics repulse her, but could they really be behind the disappearance of the young couple? When the young man is found crushed under the wheels of a racecar, his body covered in a mysterious substance, Tempe realises that she is dealing with something far more sinister than she imagined. But with both the FBI and the Patriot Posse taking an interest in her movements, she has no idea where the danger is coming from, nor whether it could threaten her own life...