In the Spring of 1994, Rwanda was the scene of the first acts since the Second World War to be legally defined as genocide. Two years later, Clea Koff, a twenty-three-year-old forensic anthropologist, was one of sixteen scientists chosen by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal to go to Rwanda to unearth physical evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Bone Woman is Koff’s riveting, intimate account of that mission and six subsequent missions she undertook to Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo on behalf of the UN. It is, ultimately, a story filled with hope, humanity and justice.