Tuesday, June 3, 2008 5:27 PM CDT
BOOK REVIEW: 'The Devil's Bones' By Jefferson Bass
Review by Juanita Sherwood
Jefferson Bass’s book, “The Devil’s Bones,” recently out in hardback, would appeal to anyone who is a fan of “CSI” or other similar television shows. This fiction book is set in and around Knoxville, Tenn., the site of real forensic anthropology experiments conducted by the University of Tennessee staff, popularly known as “The Body Farm.”
The forensic anthropology lab is a small area of acreage where the staff arranges settings to simulate death scenes (using donated human remains) to make determinations regarding deaths that have left questions for medical examiners and other legal entities. Research results in both non-fiction settings (in real life) and fictional ones (in the books) can make a difference in information presented in legal situations.
The main character is the fictitious Dr. Bill Brockton, who is patterned after one of the authors. Jefferson Bass is not one person; “he” is two people who write the books under that pseudonym. One of those is Dr. Bill Bass, founder of the real research facility, and the other is Jon Jefferson, who is a writer and documentary filmmaker. Many of the events included in the books are based on authentic events and cases in which Dr. Bass has participated.
“The Devil’s Bones” involves two cases simultaneously vying for Brockton’s attention. One is that of a young woman found burned in an automobile on family property while her husband was vacationing in Las Vegas. After research assisted by Brockton’s graduate assistant, Miranda Lovelady, and his police detective friend Art Bohanan, an unusual and interesting conclusion to the case is determined.
Another case involves a very skillful attorney, formerly an adversary, now a savior of Brockton (from a previous book), better known in Knoxville legal circles as “Grease” for his skill in getting his guilty(?) clients off on charges against them.
DeViess, the attorney’s rightful name, asks Brockton to check into cremains of his aunt to determine if they are indeed her ashes. The results of this investigation might remind the reader of a case that made headlines a short time back.
Two personal issues humanize Brockton and complicate matters for him. One involves Brockton’s love life: his guilt over his wife’s death due to ovarian cancer before any of the books begin, and the effects of his burgeoning romance with Dr. Jess Carter, a medical examiner. The other is his relationship with his son and his family.
A dark shadow looming over Brockton is the character Garland Hamilton, former medical examiner of Knox County. He is a villain in all three books to date: a pompous know-it-all who does not like to be found wrong.
Brockton’s techniques and activities in his investigations do not always make the administration at the university happy nor do they ingratiate him with employees of the nearby UT Hospital, but they captivate the reader. The author’s honesty and descriptions involving methods used to solve cases are sometimes brutal and blunt, but work of that sort is not for the squeamish.
The first book in the series where Brockton is introduced is “Carved in Bone,” partially set in nearby Cooke County, Tenn. It gives a look at rural Tennessee mountain culture, both social and environmental.
The second book, “Flesh and Bone,” is equally good, and shows even more complications to Brockton’s professional and private life. Both of the earlier two are available in paperback.
These books make for good reads if you like mysteries and a bit of real procedure and research thrown for authenticity. After finishing all three books, you might tell yourself that it will be interesting to see who the villain is in the next one…enough said.
Sherwood of Charleston is a retired reading teacher.
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