At a friend's request, Dr. Bill Brockton is called away from the Body Farmβhis human-decomposition research facility at the University of Tennesseeβto help prove that a woman's suicide was, in fact, murder. But Brockton's quick consulting trip takes a harrowing detour through the Florida panhandle when two adolescent skulls are discovered near the ruins of a once-notorious juvenile detention facility, destroyed by fire more than four decades ago.
Local stories about the North Florida Boys' Reformatory are chilling: nightmarish tales of savage beatings, torture, and worse. Guided by the diary of a former "student," Brockton's team soon makes a grisly discovery: a cluster of shallow graves containing the bones of teenage boys, all of whom suffered violent deaths. But the search for answers becomes more perilous the closer Brockton comes to the truthβbecause unexpected skeletons reside in some surprisingly prominent closets . . . and summoning ghosts from the past can have devastating consequences in the present.
From Publishers Weekly
In Bass's uneven sixth forensic procedural featuring Dr. Bill Brockton (after The Bone Thief), Brockton, who's in charge of the Body Farm, a Tennessee research facility where cadavers are left to decay for research purposes, agrees to help a visiting Florida forensic analyst, Angie St. Claire, with a personal tragedy. St. Claire's sister has died of a shotgun blast to the head in Georgia, a death ruled a suicide by the local authorities, but St. Claire suspects her brother-in-law killed her sister. Brockton's efforts to preserve evidence that could support St. Claire's theory ends up taking a backseat to another puzzle, based on events at an actual Florida reform school, where boys were routinely physically abused. Realistic descriptions of forensic work compensate only in part for less than convincing action sequences. Bass is the writing team of Bill Bass, the real-life model for Brockton, and Jon Jefferson. (Mar.)
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About the Author
Jefferson Bass is the writing team of Dr. Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson. Dr. Bass, a world-renowned forensic anthropologist, founded the University of Tennessee's Anthropology Research Facilityβthe Body Farmβa quarter century ago. He is the author or coauthor of more than two hundred scientific publications, as well as a critically acclaimed memoir about his career at the Body Farm, Death's Acre. Dr. Bass is also a dedicated teacher, honored as National Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Jon Jefferson is a veteran journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. His writings have been published in the New York Times , Newsweek , USA Today , and Popular Science , and broadcast on National Public Radio. The coauthor of Death's Acre , he is also the writer and producer of two highly rated National Geographic documentaries about the Body Farm.