Alexa Glock Forensics Mysteries

When a body is found half-submerged in a molten mud pot in one of Rotorua's famous geothermal wonderlands, forensics expert Alexa Glock spots a way to prolong her stay in New Zealand, which she has been visiting for work. Teeth are her expertise, and the investigation needs her help, as other ways of identifying the body may have...melted away. Joining Detective Inspector Bruce Horne and his team, Alexa discovers that the murder victim, a city councilman, had trespassed on an island sacred to the Maori.

At first, Alexa Glock's initial case as a traveling forensic investigator seems straightforward - her expertise in teeth helps her identify the skeletal remains of a hunter found on the remote Stewart Island of New Zealand. But when she realizes the bullet lodged in his skull was not self-inflicted, and then a second shark-ravaged body washes up on Ringaringa Beach, it's clear that something dangerous is lurking in the beautiful waters surrounding the island. The disturbing sight seems to confirm what locals have hashed out in the pub.

New Zealand's remote Milford Track seems the perfect place for forensic investigator Alexa Glock to reconnect with her brother Charlie, with whom she hasn't spent much time since they were kids. But their backpacking trip seems ill-fated from the start: She must stop on the way to examine nine skeletons—most likely Māori tribespeople—whose graves have been unearthed by highway construction. Before she opens the first casket, a Māori elder gives her a dire warning: The viewing of bones can unleash misfortune to the living. Or worse.

Something odd in the deceased's mouth sets Alexa and the team on a new track—to find Quinn's murderer. As they work to narrow the suspect field, a second homicide—and a stolen cache of weapons from a locked room in the bunker—ramp up the investigation and the risk to Alexa's life. Will she be able to solve this particular riddle before she becomes victim #3?

Alexa Glock is at a crossroads—personally and professionally. As an American working and living in New Zealand, she's come to love the place with its rugged beauty and warm, friendly people. But there's still so much she wants to learn in her field of forensic odontology, and her professional crush in Scotland has just interviewed her for a position at the University of Edinburgh. To complicate matters, she learns that the man who professes to love her had been unfaithful to his ex-wife.