Trace Elements — Kathryn Lasky Knight

DEATH BY VENOM...

Tom Jacobs' last act in this world was to die face to face with the limitless universe that had been his life's work. But what was he doing in the Nevada desert--and who would kill an astrophysicist with a rattlesnake?

When a second researcher meets the same unlikely death, Tom's spirited widow, Calista, cannot leave ill enough alone. A slender chain of evidence leads Calista and her computer-wise son, Charley, into the murky realms of university politics, and beyond--all the way to a high-flying government cover-up with global, and very deadly, ramifications...