SKELETON OF THE PAST Back in the Sixties, the street belonged to students, druggies, and rolling stones. Nowadays it's a sedate family enclave, and freelance writer Liz Sullivan, who is child-and house-sitting on the block, is astonished when the kids find human bones in their dug-up sidewalk. Whose bones? Probably those of a male in his twenties, whose body was stashed away some thirty years ago. Positive identification seems unlikely. But Liz and her friend, police detective Paul Drake, go digging, and from the memories of people who lived the days of peace and love in Palo Alto they resurrect a past that someone would--and will--murder to keep buried. Meanwhile, the bones take a walk, the helter-skelter past resumes its sway, and Liz picks a bone with a killer. . . . "A refreshing and offbeat take on the female detective." --San Francisco Chronicle