"Twelve-year-old Esme and her best friend, Finch, discover dinosaur bones on her family's peach farm and are suddenly surrounded by people with nefarious motives"--

Soon after paleontologist Norman "Pick" Pickford happens on a discovery in Montana that could prove to be revolutionary, a menacing visitor is murdered and Mike Wire, retired L.A. homicide detective and ranch foreman, realizes that the fossils may be worth killing for.

When the largest, most complete fossil of a Tyrannosaurus Rex is discovered in Absaroka County, it would appear to have nothing to do with Walt. That is, until the Cheyenne rancher who finds her is found face down in a turtle pond. As a number of parties vie for ownership of the priceless remains, including rancher Danny Lone Elk's family, the Cheyenne tribe, the Deputy Attorney General, and a cadre of FBI men, Walt must recruit undersheriff Victoria...

Surprises are in store as Stink excavates his backyard in search of a relic from an extinct beast -- and Judy lends him a little sleight of hand. Mega-chomp! Stink wants to make the find of the century. He's on a dig, dig, digging quest in his backyard to find a tooth from a saber-toothed cat, otherwise known as a Smilodon. Why not? Two kids in Michigan found a mastodon bone in a backyard stream, and a girl in Great Britain found a pterosaur bone....