The linchpin of the Manhattan Project during World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was a top-secret military installation with plenty of skeletons hidden within the confines of its heavily guarded buildings.

When the death of an elderly scientist, Dr. Leonard Novak, is linked to a deadly radioactive pellet found during an autopsy, questions immediately arise about how this horrendous situation could occur. Or, more to the point, who could have wanted the old man dead so badly to have used this means of killing the him?

The answers to Dr. Novak's horrific demise may rest with his aging former wife. A captivating but totally unreliable storyteller, Beatrice moves back and forth between fact and fantasy, dementia and lucidity. But somewhere in this maze of recalled events lies not only the truth behind her ex-husband's research but also the reason for his untimely death.

Now it is up to forensic anthropologist Bill Brockton, founder of the Body Farm, to sift through the maze of Beatrice's imagined and real memories to unmask a clever killer and uncover secrets perhaps better left buried.