Showing results by author "Jefferson Bass" in All Categories

In this long-awaited prequel to his New York Times bestselling series, Jefferson Bass turns the clock back to reveal the Body Farm's creation - and Dr. Bill Brockton's deadly duel with a serial killer. In the summer of 1992, Arkansas governor Bill Clinton and Tennessee senator Al Gore begin their long-shot campaign to win the White House. On a sweltering hillside in Knoxville, Dr. Bill Brockton, the bright, ambitious young head of the University of Tennessee's Anthropology Department, launches an unusual - some would call it macabre - research facility, unlike any other in existence.

In 1978, 56-year-old Leoma Patterson left a bar in Clinton, Tennessee, and was never seen again. Six months later, a female skeleton was found on a wooded lakeshore in a neighboring county. The bones were consistent with those of the missing woman, and one of Patterson's daughters recognized a ring found at the death scene as her mother's. The bones were buried, and six years later, a relative of Patterson's - one of the men she was last seen alive with - confessed to killing her. Case closed.

Forensic anthropologist Bill Brockton has spent 25 years solving brutal murders - but none so horrific and merciless as his latest case: A ravaged set of skeletal remains is found scattered in the woods of nearby Cook County. They are all that is left of a victim who had been chained, hand and foot, to a tree on a remote mountainside. The bones tell Brockton and his longtime graduate assistant, Miranda, that the victim was a young male under the age of thirty. As they dig deeper to establish his identity, they uncover warning signs that long-simmering hatred is about to explode.

It's been 10 years since Dr. Bill Brockton created the Body Farm - the world's first postmortem research facility dedicated to advancing the frontiers of forensic science - and the researcher is at the pinnacle of his career. Under his leadership, the University of Tennessee's forensic anthropology program has become the most prominent in the world, and Brockton's skills and knowledge are in high demand among top law enforcement.