Just Bones: A Mystery

A former L.A. emergency-room doctor, now medical examiner and emergency-room resident in Bishop, Iowa, is given seven mysterious deaths to solve in this low-key, absorbing debut. When a demolition crew begins to tear down an abandoned lakeside hotel, they discover a room with two skeletons inside. Called to the scene, Bill Mullins, M.E., and Sheriff Eugene ""Bird"" Starling discover that the room had been sealed. Then they find two more sealed rooms, each containing bones, and a bullet. Although Bird is content to let the deaths go unsolved, Bill is determined to find out who the victims were so they can be properly buried. He and a forensic anthropologist from the University of Iowa identify ""four women of various races and ages and two black men in their thirties""; one of the women had been pregnant. The skeletons had been found in pairs, each placed in a sexually explicit pose before the rooms were sealed. The trail of clues leads Bill toward the new Ku Klux Klan. As the story progresses, affable, fair-minded Bill becomes the reader's bellwether in a turbulent, disturbing situation. (July)