The Unquiet Bones (hugh De Singleton, Surgeon Chronicles #1)

In April 2023, brothers Benjamin and Raphael Duvalier are demolishing the foundations of a small A-frame chapel at the Hemlock Ski Resort in British Columbia when Raphael's excavator hooks two large leg bones with a woman's platform-heeled boot still attached. They recognize the bones as human and call authorities.

Sergeant Jane Munro, a homicide detective recently reassigned to a cold case unit after an emotional incident at work, receives the call while attending a support group for people experiencing ambiguous loss, a form of grief over a loved one who vanishes without resolution. Jane's fiancé, Matt Rossi, disappeared six months earlier on a solo hiking trip, and she is pregnant with his child, a pregnancy she discovered only after his disappearance. Relieved to have meaningful work, she heads to Hemlock Mountain with her partner, Corporal Duncan Murtagh.

At the site, forensic anthropologist Dr. Ella Quinn determines the body is female, about five feet four, and likely young. The torso has been preserved through saponification, a process in which damp, alkaline conditions transform fatty tissue into a waxy substance called adipocere. A hole on the skull's left side with radiating fracture lines indicates fatal blunt force trauma.

Crime reporter Angela Sheldrick of CBCN-TV arrives with her cameraman, Rahoul Basra. Barred from the scene, she interviews the construction workers and learns about the platform boot before police release information. She pitches her boss, Mason Gordon, the station's program director, on a reality crime series. Mason gives cautious approval but is privately disturbed by fragmented memories of swinging a heavy bar and seeing blood from a night of substance abuse as a teenager.

The news triggers alarm among the "Shoreview Six," a group of former high school friends. One of them, Mary Metcalfe, flashes back to September 3, 1976, when she walked home from a party with her best friend, Annalise Jansen, who was wearing new platform boots. They fought bitterly: Annalise taunted Mary about her weight and claimed to have slept with Mary's boyfriend, Claude Betancourt. By Monday, Annalise was reported missing. Mason, whose real name is Rocco Jones, calls Bob Davine, a retired lawyer on Somersby Island. Bob, originally Robbie Davine, is shaken because the remains match what Annalise wore that night. He recalls the pledge the six friends made never to speak of it.

Further lab analysis reveals two separate fatal impacts to the skull. The victim was between 12 and 16 years old, and the adipocere has preserved a fetus of about three months' gestation, making paternal DNA a potential breakthrough. Artifacts including platform boots dated to 1975-1977 and a leather change purse with a dogwood design help identify the victim as Annalise Grace Jansen, 15, missing since September 3, 1976. An associated file lists Darryl John Hendricks, 18, also missing since that date along with his 1972 Volkswagen bus. Hugo Glucklich, the retired Hemlock night watchman, recalls hearing digging near the chapel during Labour Day weekend 1976, when a Diamond Pacific Concrete truck was left on the mountain.

Annalise's younger sister, Faith Blackburn, now 56, lives in the basement of her childhood home with her elderly parents, Helen and Kurt Jansen. Faith has secretly read Annalise's journal, which uses code names and references a mysterious married man, "HC," who frequented the Donut Diner where Annalise worked; a terrifying figure, "HE"; and a kind person, "CW," who offers to help Annalise escape. Faith resolves to burn the diary to protect her mother.

Angela escalates the crisis by secretly recording a conversation between Ella and criminal profiler Dr. Noah Gautier, then airing details about the pregnancy and the victim's age. Jane had designated these as holdback evidence, meaning investigative details police keep secret to verify genuine tips and confessions. Furious, Jane delivers the death notification to the Jansen family. Helen is devastated; she did not know Annalise was pregnant. Jane also visits Darryl's father, Ahmed Hendricks, and sister, Danielle, who insist Darryl tutored Annalise but was never her boyfriend. Danielle reveals that Jill Wainwright Osman, one of the Shoreview Six, privately confessed years ago to lying to police about seeing Darryl and Annalise being intimate.

Jane identifies retired West Vancouver Police Chief Knox Raymond as a person of interest. A Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) badge pin found with Annalise's remains, a 1976 photo of Knox's metallic-brown Dodge Dart matching a car seen near the Jansen home that night, and identification by Beth Haverton, the former Donut Diner manager, all connect Knox to the mysterious "HC." When Knox comes to the station hoping to steer the investigation, Jane confronts him with the evidence. He refuses to provide DNA and storms out.

Bob organizes a secret meeting of the Shoreview Six at Jill's waterfront home. Tensions erupt as Mary demands the truth. Rocco breaks down, confessing he has spent 47 years believing he beat Darryl to death during a blackout. The aftermath shatters every relationship. Jill confesses to her husband, Isaias Osman, that Robbie and Claude beat Darryl to death with tire irons, pushed his body in the VW bus off cliffs at Blackwater Lake, and manipulated the incapacitated Rocco into believing he was the sole killer; in reality, Rocco swung once before passing out. Cara, another of the Six, admits she lied about seeing Darryl with Annalise. She actually saw Claude having sex with Annalise and fabricated the story so Robbie would dump Annalise, freeing him for Cara. Her lie set the chain of violence in motion.

Isaias visits Rocco to tell him the truth. Shortly after Isaias leaves, Angela arrives at the building, having learned Rocco's real identity. As she steps away, Rocco's body crashes onto the roof of a parked car. Investigators find a note stating Darryl's body is in the VW bus at Blackwater Lake. An RCMP dive team recovers the submerged Volkswagen with skeletal remains inside. Jane informs Ahmed, who says he can finally bury his son and clear Darryl's name.

Jane brings in the remaining Shoreview members for questioning; Cara is intercepted at the airport attempting to flee to Greece. DNA results confirm the remains are Annalise. The fetal DNA reveals the father is a first-degree blood relative. Since Annalise has no brothers, the father is Kurt Jansen. Additional evidence, including automotive fibers matching the Jansens' Plymouth Valiant and goose down feathers, suggests Annalise was wrapped in her duvet and transported in the family car.

Jane returns to the Jansen home. Faith hands her the final two pages of the diary she could not burn. They reveal Kurt sexually abused Annalise from early childhood, Helen refused to believe her, and Annalise slept with multiple boys to obscure the paternity. "CW" is identified as Darryl, named for his family's Cape Winds business, who offered to help Annalise escape across the border.

Helen confesses: Annalise returned from the party, confronted her mother about Kurt's abuse, and showed her pregnant belly. Helen struck Annalise with a baseball bat; Annalise fell and hit her head on a stone coffee table, sustaining the second fatal blow. Helen and Kurt wrapped Annalise in her duvet and buried her beneath the chapel, where Kurt, a Diamond Pacific Concrete employee, was scheduled to pour the floor after the long weekend. Helen admits she hid the journal and fabricated the story that Annalise took it in her backpack when she left.

Knox, driving his RV through a mountain pass, hears a radio report confirming the fetal DNA matches Kurt, not him. Overcome with relief, he takes a curve too fast, crashes through a guardrail, and dies. Angela, shaken by witnessing Rocco's death, adopts a more measured reporting style; CBCN-TV green-lights her series, Someone Always Knows. Jane begins building the support network she has long resisted and finally grieves Matt openly at her mother's house for the first time. She may never find closure for herself, but she has discovered meaning in bringing closure to others, resolving to continue working cold cases as she prepares for single motherhood.