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CARVED IN BONE
by Jefferson Bass
William Morrow, February 2006
352 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 006075981X


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

CSI meets Deliverance in this first novel by Jefferson Bass (although his component authors, Mr Jefferson and Dr Bass, have several publications between them). The first of the Body Farm Novels, CARVED IN BONE begins and ends at the grisly 'farm', although most of the action takes place around Tennessee.

We meet our hero Dr Brockton as he is stabbing a corpse, trying unsuccessfully to recreate a murder wound as part of a trial. Deputy Williams spirits him off to take a look at a mummified body in a cave, apparently untouched for close to a quarter century. Who the woman was, why she was strangled and then enshrined, and who fathered her fetus are the main mysteries.

But instead of solving them in the clean, safe confines of his laboratory, Dr Brockton finds himself in the middle of a violent whirl of dope-smuggling, backwoods law, cock fighting, family feuds, and more. In addition to the outer turmoil, the good doctor is also dealing with his grief and guilt over the death of his wife, which warps his relationships with his son and most of the women he works with.

Personally, I'm getting quite tired of heroes mired in deep, dark angst; I'd find it quite a breath of fresh air if some characters could be interested in crime fighting to serve the community, as a proud family tradition, or out of sheer interest.

Fortunately, CARVED IN BONE gives us Dr Art Bohanan. Although the small print at the front of the book has the standard "all characters are fictional" disclaimer, the author's note thanks Dr Bohanan for his "gracious and good-humored permission to borrow his name, his reputation, and a few of his accomplishments." He must have quite the reputation -- when we first meet him, he is superglued to his microscope, and he has great lines like: "My childlike immaturity's the only thing standing between me and a major midlife crisis."

But don't be fooled into thinking that this is a quirky cozy. This is a very dark story in the mold of Tennessee Williams or Faulkner. As such, CARVED IN BONE is a good book for those who like their plots noir and their gore graphically described.

Reviewed by Linnea Dodson, March 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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