Campus Bones

In Barz’s disappointing third Dead Remaining thriller (after 2020’s Hidden Bones), geology professor Eric Evans, who has a reputation for using “cryptic messages from the dead to help solve murders,” is in his office at San Francisco’s Lamount University when he’s confronted by gun-toting Bryan McDougal. Bryan begs Eric to help prove his innocence in the murder of Bryan’s ex-girlfriend, Samantha Neville. Samantha’s parents are pushing the police to arrest Bryan because of overwhelming evidence against him. Meanwhile, Eric’s ex-girlfriend, FBI agent Susan Marlan, is looking into the disappearance of an engineer and an armed guard who worked at a Northern California dam. When the investigations of both Samantha’s murder and the missing dam employees begin to point to the culpability of a group of ecoterrorists, Eric and Susan find themselves in danger. After Bryan dies, a suspected suicide, Eric has visions that tell a different story. The romantic heat generated by Eric and Susan’s ambivalent feelings about ending their relationship compensates only in part for a predictable plot and stock characters. Still, fans of paranormal fiction may want to have a look. Agent: Paul Lucas, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Aug.)