The Bone Yard: A Body Farm Novel - Softcover

Bass, Jefferson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062277413 ISBN 13: 9780062277411

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2013

Synopsis

At a friend's request, Dr. Bill Brockton is called away from the Body Farm--his human-decomposition research facility at the University of Tennessee--to help prove that a woman's suicide was, in fact, murder. But Brockton's quick consulting trip takes a harrowing detour through the Florida panhandle when two adolescent skulls are discovered near the ruins of a once-notorious juvenile detention facility, destroyed by fire more than four decades ago. Local stories about the North Florida Boys' Reformatory are chilling: nightmarish tales of savage beatings, torture, and worse. Guided by the diary of a former "student," Brockton's team soon makes a grisly discovery: a cluster of shallow graves containing the bones of teenage boys, all of whom suffered violent deaths. But the search for answers becomes more perilous the closer Brockton comes to the truth--because unexpected skeletons reside in some surprisingly prominent closets . . . and summoning ghosts from the past can have devastating consequences in the present.

About this title

About the Author:

Jefferson Bass is the writing team of Jon Jefferson and Dr. Bill Bass. Dr. Bass, a world-renowned forensic anthropologist, is the creator of the University of Tennessee's Anthropology Research Facility, widely known as the Body Farm. He is the author or coauthor of more than two hundred scientific publications, as well as a critically acclaimed memoir about his career at the Body Farm, Death's Acre. Dr. Bass is also a dedicated teacher, honored as U.S. Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Jon Jefferson is a veteran journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. His writings have been published in the New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, and Popular Science and broadcast on National Public Radio. The coauthor of Death's Acre, he is also the writer and producer of two highly rated National Geographic documentaries about the Body Farm.

From the Inside Flap:

The onset of summer brings predictably steamy weather to the Body Farm, Dr Bill Brockton's human-decomposition research facility at the University of Tennessee. But when Angie St Claire, forensic analyst with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, asks him to help prove that her sister's death was not suicide, but murder, things get a whole lot more uncomfortable.
Brockton's quick consulting trip takes a harrowing turn when he discovers bones buried amid the forests of Florida. Two adolescent skulls, bearing the telltale signs of lethal fractures, send Brockton, Angie and special agent Stu Vickery on a search for victims. The quest leads them to the ruins of the North Florida Boys' Reformatory, a notorious juvenile detention facility that met a fiery end more than forty years ago.
Brockton's team soon finds a cluster of shallow graves, all of them containing the bones of boys who met violent deaths. The graves confirm the theory that one wrong move could land a boy in the Bone Yard. But as the investigation expands, it encounters opposition from the local sheriff, who's less than delighted to find forensic experts from the Body Farm digging up dirt in his county.
As Brockton and his team close in on the truth, they find skeletons in some surprisingly prominent closets... and they learn that the ghosts of the past pose perilous present consequences.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0062277413
• ISBN 13: 9780062277411
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 375