Cut to the Bone

January 13, 2014
The serviceable eighth Body Farm novel (after 2012's The Bones of Avignon) from the writing team of Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson is a prequel. Forensic anthropologist Bass created the world's first facility to study the decomposition of human corpses, and his fictional alter ego, Dr. William Brockton, is about to do the same in 1992 in Tennessee. Brockton, who's been frustrated by his inability to help law-enforcement pinpoint the time of death, believes that analysis of exactly how long it takes cadavers to disintegrate by using "bugs like a time-since-death stopwatch" can do just that. Meanwhile, a sadist named Satterfield is severing the limbs of his female victims, an m.o. that matches that of a murderer Brockton pursued two years earlier in Alaska. The writing sometimes gets away from the authors ("the razor-tipped arrow penetrated his chest, and his heart opened in a bloom of crimson to receive its thrust"), and plot surprises are the exception rather than the rule, but series fans will be pleased. Agent: Giles Anderson, Anderson Literary Agency.

November 1, 2013
Having explored the mysteries surrounding the Shroud of Turin in The Inquisitor's Key (2012), the seventh book in his Body Farm series, Bass is back on home turf, tracing the origins of forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Brockton's research facility. It's the summer of 1992. Brockton is the young head of the anthropology department at the University of Tennessee. When prostitutes start turning up dead, all killed by similar means, their bodies deposited in the countryside, he becomes aware of the possibility that the killings resonate with a case from his past. The brainy murderer, Satterfield, who provides his own narration, favors particular cutting tools and likes to slice off fingers. With each horrendous crime, he takes a step closer to Brockton's family. This book takes its time in the early parts, filling us in on each of the victims' lives before they unknowingly climb into Satterfield's vehicle. Brockton also gets opportunities to discuss the future of forensics with his assistant, explaining how studying insects removed from corpses will enable investigators to determine exact time of death. But if the pace of this prequel is sometimes leisurely, Bass (forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Bass and science writer Jon Jefferson) is better than most at making the subject compelling. And when it comes time to turn up the intensity, he does that with satisfying efficiency, spreading the tension among a solid cast of supporting characters. There's nothing especially original about the plot, but Bass is more comfortable working in his own backyard than he is chasing exotic secrets on foreign soil.

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