So I finally finished book No. 1 for 2014, Cut to the Bone by Jefferson Bass. Cut to the Bone is the 5th book in Body Farm series, which features the exploits of forensic anthropologist Bill Btrockton. The character of Bill Brockton is based upon the life of the real life director of the Body Farm at the University of Tennessee, Dr. Bill Bass. Bill Bass is half of the writing team that creates these great novels. The other half of the writing duo is journalist, writer and documentary film maker Jon Jefferson.
While this is the 5th book in the series, it is actually a prequel to all the books. The story is set in 1992, when Bill Brockton, head of the Anthropology Department at Tennessee, was in the early stages of setting up the Body Farm at UT. In the story, Brockton and his assistant Tyler Wainwright, are called in to help police in determining, who the bones found at an old mining site belong to. Brockton and Tyler quickly decide that the bones belong to a young girl, who appears to have had a hard life. But when the police ask how long her body has been there, Brockton doesn’t have an answer for them. In fact the last time he work with this police department he only missed the age of the bones by a hundred years!! So Brockton decides that Tyler’s dissertation should revolve around using the life cycle of blowflies to determine the rate of decomposition of the human body. Now while all this is happening in and around Knoxville. Bill is also called to help in the brutal murder of a prostitute. But when the method of cutting up the body matched a case that Brockton worked on a few years earlier and then more bodies start piling up that also match Brockton’s cases, it seems that Brockton and company are on the trail of a serial killer who may have his sights set on Brockton and his family!!
Like all the past novels, Cut to the Bone is a fast paced you don’t want to put it down read! The nice part of the book is that the reader are introduced to characters like Brockton’s wife Kathleen, his graduate assistant Tyler, and of course the infancy of the Body Farm! This novel really didn’t have as much of the forensic science in the story, as the other books in the series. But the development of the character of the serial killer, Satterfield was good and the tension built up over the last pages was another plus for the book. So all in all Cut to the Bone is a fine addition to the series, now I think I would still start with Carved in Bone, just to get to know Bill Brockton, first he’s a great character both in fiction and in reality!!
Ok so now I just went to the Jefferson Bass website and I see there is another prequel Jordan’s Stormy Banks a novella! I guess I have to go pick that up at Amazon…..it’s only 99 cents!! sounds good to me!!