The first four Body Farm novels — Carved in Bone, Flesh and Bone, The Devil’s Bones, and Bones of Betrayal — took readers deep into the backwoods of East Tennessee, where fascinating forensic science mixed with extraordinary characters, including the Farm’s charismatic founder, Dr. Bill Brockton. Now, in the latest installment of the New York Times bestselling series Kathy Reichs calls “the real deal,” Brockton must stop a grisly black market dealing in body parts and cadavers. Don’t miss this white-knuckle adventure, which draws on the experiences of the man widely considered the world’s foremost expert in forensic anthropology.
The Body Farm Novels: The Bone Thief—New!
Grave-robbing becomes a high stakes, big-bucks, and deadly business in this chilling thriller from New York Times bestselling author Jefferson Bass.
Dr. Bill Brockton has been called in on a seemingly routine case, to exhume a body and obtain a bone sample for a DNA paternity test. But when the coffin is opened, Brockton and his colleagues, including his graduate assistant Miranda Lovelady, are stunned to see that the corpse has been horribly violated.
Brockton’s initial shock gives way to astonishment as he uncovers a flourishing and lucrative black market in body parts. At the center of this ghoulish empire is a daring and prosperous grave robber. Soon Brockton finds himself drawn into the dangerous enterprise when the FBI recruits him to bring down the postmortem chop shop—using corpses from the Body Farm as bait in an undercover sting operation.
As Brockton struggles to play the unscrupulous role the FBI asks of him, his friend and colleague medical examiner Eddie Garcia faces a devastating injury that could end his career. Exposed to a near-lethal dose of radioactivity, Dr. Garcia has lost most of his right hand and his entire left hand. Out of options, he embarks on a desperate quest: both of his ravaged hands will be severed at the wrist and replaced with those from a cadaver. But unless suitable ones are found soon, the opportunity will be lost.
As Brockton delves deep into the clandestine trade, he is faced with an agonizing choice: Is he willing to risk an FBI investigation—and his own principles—to help his friend? Will he be able to live with himself if he crosses that line? Will he be able to live with himself if he doesn’t? And as the criminal case and the medical crisis converge, a pair of simpler questions arise: Will Dr. Garcia survive—and will Brockton?
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Release Date: March 23, 2010
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The Body Farm
On the campus of the University of Tennessee lies a patch of ground unlike any in the world. The "Body Farm" is a place where human corpses are left to the elements, and every manner of decay is fully explored—for the sake of science and the cause of justice.
And now, a fascinating new fiction series based on reality...
Bones of Betrayal
Wartime Oak Ridge proves nearly as atmospheric a crime scene as Sam Spade's San Francisco or Philip Marlowe's L.A.
— Wilmington Star News
Dr. Bill Brockton is in the middle of a nuclear-terrorism disaster drill when he receives an urgent call from the nearby town of Oak Ridge — better known as Atomic City, home of the Bomb, and the key site for the Manhattan Project during World War II. Although more than sixty years have passed, could repercussions from that dangerous time still be felt today?
With his graduate assistant Miranda Lovelady, Brockton hastens to the death scene, where they find a body frozen facedown in a swimming pool behind a historic, crumbling hotel. The forensic detectives identify the victim as Dr. Leonard Novak, a renowned physicist and designer of a plutonium reactor integral to the Manhattan Project. They also discover that he didn't drown: he died from a searing dose of radioactivity.
As that same peril threatens the medical examiner and even Miranda, Brockton enlists the help of Novak's elderly ex-wife, Beatrice. Charming and utterly unreliable, Beatrice takes Brockton on a trip back into Oak Ridge's wartime past, deep into the shadows of the nuclear race where things were not quite as they seemed....
Release Date: February 3, 2008
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