White Fire: Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child

This was the first book I have read by these authors, and it was actually recommended to me by a friend. The book starts off with a flashback to the late 1800's. Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle meet over dinner and discuss a disturbing story Oscar heard from some miners in Colorado. The story then continues to present day and a girl, Corri, working on her thesis in criminology. She gets a tip that a cemetery is being moved and the remains have been dug up, which is a perfect opportunity to study the causes of death. She hears a story about a grizzly bear that killed several miners and plans to study the bones for how a large carnivore attack leaves them. Once she gets to the town she is told she can no longer view the remains and after she breaks into the shed where the bones are being temporarily kept, she gets jailed. The story then progresses where her benefactor- Pendergast- saves her from 10 yrs. in jail and obtains permission from the families to study the bodies. She finds out the people were actually eaten by humans, not bears. Then by going through historical documents (and Doyle's missing book about the incident) they realize the cannibals had mercury poisoning cause by the mine. They then realize the newer housing development is sitting in the valley where the mercury would have run off. A boy, who expressed interest in Corri, ends up trying to kill her and we learn he too suffered from mercury poisoning.