Prequel to: "Carved in bone", the first book in the Body Farm series.

In the summer of 1992, Arkansas governor Bill Clinton and Tennessee senator Albert Gore begin their long-shot campaign to win the White House. On a sweltering hillside in Knoxville, Dr. Bill Brockton, the bright, ambitious young head of the University of Tennessee's Anthropology Department, launches an unusual -- some would call it macabre -- research facility, unlike any other in existence. Brockton is determined to revolutionize the study of forensics to help law enforcement solve homicides. But the scientist's plans are derailed by a chilling murder that leaves him reeling from a sense of deja vu. Followed by another. And then another: bodies that bear an eerie resemblance to cases from Brockton's past.