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CARVED IN BONE
By: Jefferson Bass
HarperCollins Publishers: New York
2007 (pb)
Carved in Bone is a novel obviously aimed at
that audience that seems insatiable in its desire to absorb as much forensic
crime fiction as possible. Devotees of authors such as Patricia Cornwell
and Kathy Reichs and TV shows like “CSI” and “Bones” will be delighted with
the entry of “Jefferson Bass” in the mix. But like Kathy Reichs, who is
real life forensic anthropologist, and who plugs Carved in Bone as
“the real deal,” Jefferson Bass (or at least half of him) is the real
deal! For Jefferson Bass is the pseudonym of two collaborators—journalist
Jon Jefferson and forensic anthropologist, Dr. William Bass. Dr. Bass is
not only a highly regarded member of his profession, with over two hundred
scientific publications to his credit, but also the founder of the
University of Tennessee’s Anthropology Research Facility—better known as,
and made famous in fiction in Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta novel—the
Body Farm.
This unique facility, founded some twenty-five years
ago, utilizes the donation of human cadavers to study the effects of the
environment—both natural and man-made on the decomposition of human bodies.
The information gleaned from this admittedly macabre experiment in taphonomy
provides invaluable information to law enforcement investigations.
Enter Dr. Bill Brockton, a professor of anthropology at
the University of Tennessee and a researcher at the Body Farm, who lends his
expertise to local and federal criminal investigators—and a younger version,
the reader assumes, of Dr. Bass himself. This first entry in the “Body Farm
Novels”—a second, entitled Flesh and Bone, was published earlier this
year—is an exciting addition to the world of forensic fiction. Bill
Brockton is a pleasant protagonist—brilliant but a bit goofy in an endearing
academic way—but also more than a little vulnerable and somewhat damaged
following the death of his wife, some two years before Carved in Bone
opens.
In addition to the creation of Brockton, the
collaborating authors accurately describe the University of Tennessee campus
and Knoxville environment, including the Anthropology Department’s sharing
of the UT football stadium with the famed UT Volunteers football team!
Jefferson and Bass also create a rural East Tennessee (especially their
Cooke County) full of crooked lawmen, moonshiners, pot growers, Primitive
Baptists (that’s not a religious slur but rather the official name of a
denomination!), cock fight fans, and a whole lot of people who don’t like
“outsiders!”
Bill Brockton’s first “recorded” case involves the
discovery of the body of a young woman in a cave in backcountry Cooke
County. The body has been mummified in its own adipocere, or “grave wax,”
which forms when the body’s fatty tissues decompose in moist environments,
which in turn gives the cadaver the look of a wax figure. It is in such
forensic detail that the novel almost literally takes flight—for Jefferson
Bass is the “real deal.” This book—and I suspect, those to come—is not be
for the squeamish or the faint of heart. But despite the high “yuck
factor,” this is an entertaining and a very educational outing into the
world of forensic anthropology.
I anticipate stronger plots in the future—the
denouement was a bit too easy to predict—but the forensic science alone
earns this little gem four trowels!
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