Crooked Lane Books
October 2026
On Sale: October 27, 2026
304 pages ISBN: B0GN5XMP3Q EAN: 9798892427166 Kindle: B0GN518CTQ Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
As a renowned forensic consultant digs into a case that could reconnect her with her long‑missing father, she uncovers dark truths about her desert hometown.
This twisty, atmospheric mystery from New York Times bestselling author Paige Shelton will send chills racing down readers’ spines.
The desert runs through Hazel Dylan’s marrow. She grew up on the edge of The Wild, an untamed expanse outside her hometown of Black Vulture, Arizona. She became fascinated with bones as a child while observing her taxidermist father, Wilmot, until he disappeared without a trace decades ago. Now, after years of study and countless cases, she’s known as the Bone Woman. She can read the dark stories that bones tell.
When a hiker makes a disturbing discovery in The Wild—bleached human bones arranged with surgical precision into a taxidermy‑like sculpture of a coyote mid‑howl—Sheriff Calloway summons Hazel to the scene. Not just for her formidable expertise but because it looks like it could be Wilmot’s work. Could Hazel’s father be behind this twisted creation? Are these his bones?
Hazel doesn’t want to believe either is true, but after another sculpture is found and Wilmot’s well‑known talisman—a rogue finger bone—is discovered amid both sets of remains, she can’t deny the optics.
As the case takes Hazel deep into her past, she unearths long‑buried secrets. And with time running out, she’ll have to risk her own skin to catch the killer.
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