
Dr. Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist who works at the Jeffersonian Institution and also writes books, has an impressive ability to read clues from victims' bones. Consequently, law enforcement calls her to assist with investigations when remains are so badly decomposed, burned or destroyed that standard identification methods are useless. Brennan is teamed with Special Agent Seeley Booth, a former Army sniper, who mistrusts science and scientists when it comes to solving crimes but who has developed respect for Brennan, both professionally and personally.
Brennan and Booth race the clock to tie up loose ends before the defendant in Booth's first FBI case is executed for the crime.
A girl's decomposed remains are found in a refrigerator, leading Brennan to confront her former mentor.
Construction workers find a skeleton in an old fallout shelter from the 1950s and the Jeffersonian is brought in to help identify the remains; when Zack cuts into the bone, he accidentally releases spores of the deadly fungus Valley Fever, causing the team to be quarantined in the lab over Christmas; while everyone tries to maintain the holiday spirit, Brennan buckles down to solve the mystery of the fallout shelter.
Extensive plastic surgery hides the identity of a body whose parts were found near an airport.