The Devil's Bones

December 24, 2007
The lack of a strong central plot undercuts the third forensic thriller by bestseller Bass, the team of Dr. Bill Bass, founder of Tennessee’s world-renowned Body Farm, and journalist Jon Jefferson (after 2007’s Flesh and Bone
). Two cases occupy Dr. Bass’s fictional alter ego, Dr. Bill Brockton—the death of Mary Latham, a 47-year-old Knoxville native, whose charred remains were found in a burned-out car, and a disreputable Georgia crematorium that simply dumped bodies on its grounds. These probes soon take a backseat to a cat-and-mouse game with the doctor’s arch nemesis, Garland Hamilton, who tried to frame him for murder in Flesh and Bone
. When Hamilton escapes from incarceration before going to trial, Brockton must keep looking over his shoulder. While a smattering of Bass’s trademark authentic forensic detail lifts this main narrative thread, a more focused look at a single case might have made the novel a better read.

February 15, 2008
As this third thriller (after "Carved in Bone" and "Flesh and Bone") by the pseudonymous Bass (the writing team of Dr. Bill Bass, forensic anthropologist and founder of University of Tennessee's Body Farm, and science writer Jon Jefferson) opens, Bill Brockton is back at work on the Body Farm after the recent murder of his lover and an attempt on his own life. The killer, Garland Hamilton, nurses a fanatical grudge against Brockton. Before his trial begins, Hamilton escapes and is presumed to have died in a mountain cabin fire. In the meantime, Brockton uses his skills and those of his graduate student Miranda in various unrelated cases, including that of a Georgia crematorium stacking bodies in the woods and providing fake ashes to the families. The authors juggle several quickly moving narratives until the final confrontation between Brockton and his nemesis. Buy wherever forensic fiction is popular, and be aware of several graphic scenes and descriptions. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 10/15/07.]A.J. Wright, Anesthesiology Lib., Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2008
Tennessee forensic anthropologist Bill Brockton, hero of Carved in Bone (2006) and Flesh and Bone (2007), returns in this fine thriller. Garland Hamilton, the homicidal medical examiner responsible for the death of Brocktons lover (not to mention the attempted murder of Brockton himself), has escaped from custody. Brockton tracks him to a remote mountain cabin, but he is too late to capture the fiend: Hamilton is dead, burned to ashes. Or (cue the suspenseful music) is he? This mystery-forensic series began as a curiosity: a novel featuring a hero based on Bill Bass, famed forensic anthropologist and founder of the Body Farm, the worlds only laboratory devoted to the decomposition of the human body. (Bass himself and cowriter Jon Jefferson are the writers behind the Jefferson Bass pseudonym.) In the series, its Brockton who founded and runs the Body Farm, but he isnt merely Bass alter ego but, rather, a strong and series-worthy protagonist in his own right. This third installment is the best of a steadily improving series, but its doubtful weve seen the finest moments yet.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)