The Bone Chamber: A Sydney Fitzpatrick Mystery »

Robin Burcell, an FBI-trained forensic artist, has worked as a police officer, detective and hostage negotiator. After more than 20 years in law enforcement, Burcell now writes full-time.

Special Agent Sydney Fitzpatrick, forensic artist to the FBI, returns to Quantico to help identify a brutally murdered young woman. But when Sydney’s friend and colleague, the forensic anthropologist who assisted her, is killed in a hit-and-run, a covert government team takes over the investigation, and Sydney is suddenly removed from the case. Certain her friend’s murder is connected to the first case, Sydney investigates. She discovers that the first victim was not only an archeological student, but also the daughter of the ambassador to the Holy See. Just before she was killed, the ambassador’s daughter claimed to have found one of three keys that just might lead to a map of the long lost Templar treasure. Sydney’s search for answers takes her to the streets of Rome, and into the underground crypts and caverns in Naples, one step ahead of a ruthless killer. Time is running out for Sydney as a fellow government agent is kidnapped. And the ransom demanded? The Templar map.

Publishers Weekly

Burcell's second novel to feature FBI forensic artist Sydney Fitzpatrick (after 2008's Face of a Killer) offers plenty of action, if not the freshest ideas. After Fitzpatrick helps identify the faceless corpse of a young woman as the daughter of the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, Fitzpatrick decides to follow mysterious, predictably gruff covert government agent Zach Griffin to Rome. There they search for a “third key,” alluded to by a forensic anthropologist friend and colleague recently killed in a hit-and-run accident. Fitzpatrick and Griffin believe the key will lead them to a map, buried in the crypts of Rome or Naples, that may be connected to bioterrorism and a very bad guy named Carlo Adami. All this excitement takes them through standard variations on the Freemason conspiracy theory and a good deal of underground scrambling, Indiana Jones–style. It's all fun, if somewhat clichéd, and a little burdened by Fitzpatrick's many moments of brooding and indecision. (Dec.)