The Devil’s Bones-Jefferson Bass

The Devil’s Bones
Jefferson Bass
Morrow, Feb 2008, $24.95, 352 pp.
ISBN: 9780060759858

Forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Brockton has built up the anthropological department at the University of Tennessee to the point it is one of the best in the country. He is beginning to heal from the murder of his lover his beloved Dr. Jess Carter at the hands of a medical examiner Dr. Garland Hamilton who hated Jess because she was going to be the next medical examiner for the state. He loathed Bill because the pointed out a major error in Hamilton’s findings that could have put an innocent on death row.

The Body Farm is involved in solving on going investigations in which people need answers. Bill’s lawyer wants to find out what happened to the remains of his aunt because what the crematorium gave him back was not her ashes. The lawyer wants to learn the truth of what happened to the bodies sent there. He also has to figure out how a man who was in Las Vegas could have had his car explode with his wife sitting in Tennessee. Overlaying all this is the fact that Hamilton has escaped from prison and when the cabin he was staying in blow up, Bill somehow has to find a way to know if the skeleton that is there is the escaped criminal or an unidentified body that Hamilton used to throw the police bill off his scent.

THE DEVIL’S BONES is a fascinating look at how forensic anthropology helps the police solves crimes. The protagonist is a brilliant person who likes to solve it because he is as much a police investigator as a college instructor. Although the escape from emergency room Hamilton was in seems overkill (no pun intended) fans will love reading about these investigative techniques that is opening new avenues in solving crimes.

Harriet Klausner