Book Review: Carved In Bone by Jefferson Bass

Carved In Bone by Jefferson Bass
Harper
323 Pages
Copyright 2006

'Jefferson Bass' is really two people: Jon Jefferson, journalist and writer and Dr. William Bass, anthropologist and founder of the University of Tennessee's Anthropology Research Facility, also known as the Body Farm.

The Body Farm is a place for experiments in decomposition and the factors affecting it. The facility covers 2.5 acres and was the first site of its kind in the country. It was first made famous by author Patricia Cornwell in her book The Body Farm.

So. . . how does an anthropologist fair when he turns his hand to fiction writing? Very well, actually.

Dr. Bill Brockton, the fictional Bill Bass, finds himself being called in to investigate a 30-year-old corpse found in a cave in the hills of Tennessee. The county sheriff, a once promising football star, is a man with an agenda and wants Brockton to give him the evidence to arrest a long-time foe. Brockton, however, doesn't believe the foe is responsible for the crime.

Brockton quickly finds himself over his head and involved in a case where it's impossible to tell the good guys from the bad, both in and out of uniforms, or who to trust. He also finds himself dealing with the loss of his wife to cancer, something he blames himself and his son for, and something he has refused to face for two years.

There are other authors available who cover the same ground - Kathy Reichs, author of the Temperence Brennan series, comes to mind. There is one difference, however. When Brockton talks science, he doesn't sound like he's giving a dry lecture; he conveys his point in more of a conversational, easy-to-understand fashion:

This cobbled together team had done a research project to ferret out the differences between adult fingerprints and children's prints. Once Art had gotten the ball rolling, it didn't take the chemists long to figure out what was going on. Adult prints are oil-basesd, the found; kids' prints, on the other hand - before puberty kicks in and activates all those acne-producing oil glands - are water-based. And water evaporates, taking the prints with it.

It's simple, to the point, and fascinating, if you have an interest in such things.

Recommendation: Decently drawn characters, an intriguing plot, and enough turns to keep you guessing. It's an excellent first book in a series and I will definitely be reading the rest.