From Publishers Weekly
In this carefully constructed debut, the first fiction book produced by a new Nashville publisher, archeologist Lindsay Chamberlain unearths a nightmare. When a child's bones are found outside town, the local sheriff asks for her help in matching them to a missing child. Lindsay explains that the bones belong not to the presumed victim but to another little girl, who, the evidence suggests, had been sexually abused. She puts her excavation crew at the sheriff's disposal at the site of the grisly find, and it's not long before they discover and disinter the bones of more little girls. Meanwhile, back at her dig, Lindsay finds evidence of another modern burial. Although the sheriff dismisses the adult bones, which have been in the ground for over 25 years, in order to investigate the more recent child killings, Lindsay and Derrick Bellamy, her dancing partner and excavation foreman, probe further. The murder of the attorney for a locally prominent family at the site convinces them that the answers to all the crimes can be found among that family's eccentric members. Connor gives detailed descriptions of archeological and forensic method, but her focus on these nuts and bolts comes at the expense of character and pacing, rendering her puzzle a rather mechanical exercise. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Midwest Book Review
Forensic anthropologist Lindsay finds herself unwillingly drawn into contemporary issues when her discovery of a chain of modern corpses at a burial ground involves her in local murders. As she and her crew are increasingly drawn into the community's terror and drama, tension mounts in this excellent murder mystery.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Lindsay Chamberlain has a problem. People keep finding bodies in shallow graves and bringing the bones to her. It's not that she doesn't know what to do with the remains. An anthropologist who specializes in archaeology, she is an expert in the forensic analysis of bones.

It's the bones of missing children, however, that disturb her, and lately she's had more than her share of them. Someone has been abducting young girls in the area for sevearal years, and their remains have recently been found in shallow graves in a nearby wooded area. And Lindsay is asked to identify them.

A lot of strange things have happened since Lindsay and her colleagues from the Anthropology Department at the University of Georgia first began excavating the Indian settlement at Jasper Creek. First came the grave robbers and pot hunters, then the mysterious opposition that jeopardizes their work. After the shady lawyer who has orchestrated some of the trouble is murdered and someone attempts to abduct a nine-year-old girl, Lindsay finds herself in the middle of a crime that took place sixty years earlier. Because so much time has passed, it looks as if the murderer will get away with the cirme. Can Lindsay provide the proof needed to bring the killer to justice?

Author Biography: Beverly Connor weaves her professional experiences as an archaeologist and her knowledge of Southern culture into interlinked stories of the past and present in her Lindsay Chamberlain mystery series. Originally from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, she now lives in Oglethorpe County, Georgia, with her husband, her dogs, her horse, and her cats. A Rumor of Bones is the first title in the Lindsay Chamberlain series of archaeological murder mysteries.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly