You never know what's going to inspire a writer. When Charlotte's Kathy Reichs was researching her newest thriller, "Flash and Bones," she found her muse at a landfill.

Not just any dump, mind you, but the gigantic moonscape behind the Charlotte Motor Speedway, final resting place for more than half of Charlotte's trash.

At the time, Charlotte Motor Speedway President Marcus Smith was giving Reichs a tour, showing off the speedway from the impressive vantage point of his tower office.

But once Reichs saw the landfill, it was hard to keep her mind on racing.

Smith understood the attraction. "In the context of Kathy's murder mysteries," he says, "it's the ultimate dumpster."

That landfill ended up playing a key role in "Flash and Bones" (Scribner; $26.99), which hits stores Tuesday. Reichs' 14th thriller featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan revolves around NASCAR and the Charlotte Motor Speedway. If tradition holds, it'll be a best-seller.

Reichs, 63, began the series in 1997 with "Deja Dead." Back then, she was a UNC Charlotte forensic anthropologist who often worked with police, using her forensic abilities to glean information from old bones to solve crimes and identify victims.

Inspired by past cases, she wrote that first novel in her free time, creating Tempe Brennan, a divorced, recovering alcoholic who was also a sassy crime-solving forensic anthropologist. In a Cinderella publishing story, Reichs snagged a $1.2 million two-book deal.

Since then, it's been nonstop success. In 2005, her books spawned "Bones," the hit Fox TV series. Reichs serves as a producer, helping keep the show's science on track. In 2010, she launched a young-adult series with the book "Virals." Set on an island in South Carolina, it features Tempe Brennan's teenage niece, Tory, who teams up with science-loving friends to uncover murder, hidden experimentation and a virus that changes them forever.

Her second book in the series, "Seizure," comes out in October. Then there are book tours, in the U.S. and Europe, followed by a visit to U.S. soldiers in the Middle East as part of a USO tour featuring thriller writers.

Today, Reichs is Charlotte's best-known author. She has sold millions of books, and, in the process, managed to educate a nation about the science of forensic anthropology.

Her decision to write a NASCAR-focused thriller came partly because her racing-savvy neighbor, Barry Byrd, had lobbied for the idea. In her acknowledgements, Reichs says the book wouldn't have been possible without him.

Byrd, an entrepreneur who serves on the board of Speedway Children's Charities, gave Reichs an entrée to NASCAR, accompanying her on a speedway tour with Smith and introducing her to racing-world friends, including ESPN reporter Marty Smith and Chad Knaus, Jimmie Johnson's crew chief.

With their help, Reichs has crafted a novel likely to appeal to NASCAR lovers as well as thriller aficionados. And it all begins at the landfill next to the speedway.

Death at the track

As "Flash and Bones" opens, officials have summoned Tempe Brennan to the landfill after a body is discovered. It's Race Week, so she must snake her car "through the bedlam on Bruton Smith Boulevard, past the dragway, the dirt track, and a zillion fast-food joints. On the sidelines, the tattooed and tank-topped carried babies, six-packs, coolers, and radios. Vendors sold souvenirs from folding tables beneath improvised tents."

The body is crammed into an asphalt-filled barrel. Working to identify the remains, Brennan meets a NASCAR pit crew member who begs her to look into the 12-year-old disappearance of his sister, an aspiring race car driver, and her boyfriend, who had associated with right-wing extremists.

The investigation soon yields disturbing findings. The landfill barrel contains not only a body, but traces of a deadly toxin. An employee with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention goes missing while in Charlotte for Race Week. The FBI gets involved. Then there's another gruesome death at the track that appears accidental.

Does all that mayhem spook image-conscious Speedway officials? Not at all. Reichs is "obviously writing fiction," Smith says. "It sounds like another exciting, suspenseful novel."

Delving into NASCAR

Over the years, Tempe's investigations have immersed her in many different subjects - voodoo and devil worship in "Devil Bones," an ancient crypt and questions about Christ's death in "Cross Bones," a Native American burial ground in "Break No Bones."

So Reichs gets immersed, too. Though she draws on her own forensic experience, she also does painstaking research. "I check everything," she says. "Thriller readers are very sophisticated. I once got a three-page letter from a goat farmer when I made a comment about what goats eat. You'll think it's the most obscure thing in the world and it's someone's dissertation."

This is why Reichs began her "Flash and Bones" research by reading "NASCAR for Dummies" and Googling NASCAR on the Internet. It's why she asked Smith questions that fans have never asked: How is the track maintained? What do you do with materials used for repaving?

It's why she peppered Byrd with email queries like this one: "Can you tell me where the bars are located in Mooresville that the NASCAR drivers frequent? Roughly?"

Don't think you have to be NASCAR-literate to read this book. Tempe Brennan doesn't know much about the sport when she begins her investigation, but she schools herself as she proceeds. In the process, readers also learn about NASCAR and its colorful moonshine-running roots.

Reichs plans to write at least five more books in this series. She's now working on No. 15, which takes Tempe to a diamond-mining town in Canada's Northwest Territory.

Reichs got that idea after being invited to a literary festival there. While at the festival, she dove into research and learned the area was also home to now-closed gold mines that contain arsenic.

When you're a thriller writer, arsenic is as exciting as a big landfill.

"They're trying to show me the lakes and the caribou," she says. "And I'm saying, 'Tell me about this arsenic.'"