May 27, 2011

First Sentences: The Bone Yard: A Body Farm Novel by Jefferson Bass


"I held the last of the dead man's bones in my left hand. It was his skull, which I cradled upside down in my palm, as comfortably and naturally as an NBA player might hold a basketball. As I searched for a place to hide it, I felt the tip of my index finger absentmindedly tracing the edges of a hole in the right temple. It was a square-cornered opening, about the size of a small postage stamp, and it had been punched by a murder weapon - a weapon I'd tucked into a angle of honeysuckle vines a few moments before." (ch. 1)

The Bone Yard: A Body Farm Novel

The first few sentences from the crime novel, The Bone Yard by Jefferson Bass; Hardcover, 336 pages. Published by William Morrow, March 8, 2011. Genre: thriller. Source: Publisher.

Product description: The onset of summer brings steamy weather to East Tennessee and the Body Farm, Dr. Bill Brockton's human-decomposition research facility at the University of Tennessee. But Brockton's about to get more heat than he's bargained for Angie St. Clair, a forensic analyst with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, asks him to help prove that her sister's death was suicide, but murder.

Brockton's quick consulting trip takes a long, harrowing detour when bones begin turning up amid the pines and live oaks of the Florida panhandle. Two adolescent skulls - ravaged by time and animals, but bearing the telltale signs of lethal fractures - send Brockton, Angie, and special Agent Stu Vickery on a search for the long-lost 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.

About the authors: Jefferson Bass is the writing team of forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Bass and journalist writer and documentary filmmaker, Jon Jefferson. Visit them at http://www.jeffersonbass.com/

4 comments:

  1. Hello Harvee,

    This is a new author to me, but I am certainly tempted to add this series of books to my reading list.

    It really sounds like a series I would enjoy, although I note that this book and several others in the set, have received mixed reviews on Amazon.

    That won't put me off of course, because everyone of us sees a book in a different way, it is purely a matter of personal taste.

    Thanks for sharing this book, a great choice.

    Yvonne

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  2. I do like bones, but I think they are handled a tad respectlessly here ;)

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  3. I've never tried this author, but know he's quite popular. Interesting intro.

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  4. I received a copy of this one a few months ago and I seriously want to read it!!!

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