Four minus. Maybe three plus. The book is one of those dazzle-you-with-science Tempe Brennan books, where the plot (four dead women, in pairs,15 years apart) depends on Evil Scientists and greed.

The usual factors—Andrew Ryan, Tempe’s pal Anne, Montreal and Charleston, snappy dialogue— keep the whole thing afloat. However. Reichs must have written this during the pandemic, as it was just published, and she plays fast and loose with information about mRNA vaccines. Readers, presumably, are smart enough to separate facts about vaccines (now saving hundreds of thousands of lives) from speculative fiction.

Three stars.