I’m pleased to give everyone a sneak peak at the cover for book #3 in the Robert Mason Murder Mystery Series! The title of this book is Lost Bones.  Lost bones is not scheduled for a release date yet but stay tuned and we’ll let you know the moment that we have that date secured. If you haven’t already, sign up for my  newsletter so that you never miss an announcement.

Continue below for a sneak peek at chapter one of book #3 – Lost Bones.

CHAPTER 1

 

Dr. Martin Whitman, Atlanta’s only Medical Examiner knelt on the ground next to the shallow grave that held the bones of what appeared at first glance to be three victims. 

 

It was the first time that he had ever personally been called out to the site of a mass grave site. In fact, in the more than thirty years that he had served as Medical Examiner for Atlanta, this was by far the most horrific scene that he could ever remember being called to. 

 

Inside the shallow grave, the skeletonized remains of three victims could be seen. Given that an adult skeleton is made up of over 206 bones, there were more than six hundred bones lying in the bottom of the shallow pit. Each skeleton was separated by less than a foot of space between each other. At least that would make keeping the bones separate for each victim easy. 

 

“What have you got for me Doc?” asked Robert as he peered into the hole. 

 

Lieutenant Detective Robert Mason with the homicide division of the Atlanta Police Department had been hand delivered this case by the chief of police himself. 

 

“I don’t even know where to start and I don’t want to touch or disturb any of the remains until the anthropologist gets here. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like this before and I don’t want to screw this one up. I had to call in a specialist from Georgia State University just to come down and tell me what I’m looking at,” said Martin. 

 

“Alright. Let’s start with what we do know then,” said Robert. 

 

“That’s just it. As of right now, I don’t know anything. I’m looking at a mass grave site and I can physically see at least three skulls inside the grave but I have no idea how long they have even been there. And I can’t tell how many more there are without expanding the hole further. There isn’t a scrap of flesh or clothing on any of these skeletons and there is no smell. It also appears from what I can see that there was no animal predation, but, aside from that, there’s not much more that I can tell you,” said Martin. 

 

“Do you know how they were discovered?” asked Robert. 

 

“State workers called it in. There up here burying a new fiber optic cable and the backhoe unearthed more than just rocks. Said they shut everything down and called 911 as soon as they found it,” said Martin. 

 

“Who uncovered the rest of the grave?” asked Robert. 

 

“I did. Me and two of the techs from the forensics team. We opened up the rest of the grave and sifted through all of the removed dirt by running it through screens to make sure we didn’t miss any bones. It wasn’t until we got down to this layer and found the other skeletons that we decided we needed to stop and call in the experts. Robert, I’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Martin. 

 

“Me either Doc. At least not in the middle of Atlanta Georgia. This is something you might expect to see in a third world country hundreds of years ago. But not here in the middle of Georgia,” said Robert.