The Bone Yard

January 31, 2011
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.

When a dog in rural Florida repeatedly brings home human bones, Dr. Bill Brockton, respected forensic anthropologist and head of the Body Farm, an anthropological research facility, must solve the mystery. He is soon led to a former reform school and its secret graveyard. Tom Stechschulte's Southern drawl and perfect pacing beautifully capture the intelligent, dedicated Dr. Bill. Stechschulte's talent is also on full display in his portrayal of the supporting characters. Especially good are his depictions of the Southern cracker sheriff and the grim, sadistic guard. The book is suspenseful and exciting--with interesting bits of forensics details. A.C.P. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

October 15, 2010

When a skull is found in the Florida woods and shallow graves then discovered on the grounds of a nearby reform school, since closed, who better to call in than the Body Farm's Dr. Bill Brockton? Some fans found last spring's The Bone Thief a bit diffuse, but the good doctor is still back with a 75,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2011
Somewhere along the way, the novels about forensic anthropologist and crime solver Bill Brockton have become worthy of mention in the same breath with Kathy Reichs Temperance Brennan mysteries. The series has always been skillfully written, but the most recent titles have been especially gripping. In the sixth, Brockton, a fictionalized version of his cocreator, Dr. Bill Bass, founder of the University of Tennessees world-famous Body Farm, travels to Florida to help out a colleague and winds up embroiled in a mystery involving the recently discovered skulls of children who may have been murdered a few decades ago. Bass and cowriter Jon Jefferson make a good team, with Bass scientific expertise nicely complementing Jeffersons background as a journalist, and fans of forensic-themed mystery fiction (Reichs, of course, and Patricia Cornwells and Beverly Connors) definitely should add the Brockton series to their reading lists.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)