Book Review: The Bone Thief by Jefferson Bass

The Bone Thief
Jefferson Bass
William Morrow & Company, April 2010
ISBN 0061284769
Hardcover

Anytime Grease calls, Dr. Bill Brockton knows the case could be dicey. “Grease” is the nickname given to Burt DeVriess, a wealthy Knoxville defense attorney. DeVriess wants Dr. Brockton to exhume the body of a eight-year-old corpse in order to determine if the wealthy decedent fathered an illegitimate child with one of the city’s most notorious madams.

But, the body in the coffin isn’t intact. Someone’s chopped up the decedent. As Dr. Brockton continues his investigation, he uncovers more of the Ivy Funeral Home’s former clients with empty graves.

But why are dead bodies being stolen?  Parts are big business. Some unscrupulous tissue firm is clearly paying for cadavers.

When the FBI gets a lead on a firm, they ask Dr. Brockton to go undercover and offer to supply the group with donated cadavers from the Body Farm. The assignment goes against everything Dr. Brockton stands for, but if the law has any chance of catching the grave robbers, he’s going to have to help.  Doing so may well cost him friends and even his life.

The Bone Thief is my favorite of the Body Farm novels by the award-winning team of Dr. Bill Bass, the founder of the real Body Farm, and Jon Jefferson, his film and writing partner. It’s the grittiest and tightest paced of their efforts so far. They’ve done an admirable job of synthesizing their research for this effort, incorporating the issues of tissue theft pretty smoothly into the plot.  The book will literally have you up reading well past your bedtime.

Reviewed by Rebecca Kyle.

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April 19, 2010  Tags:   Posted in: Full Reviews

3 Responses

  1. Carol M - April 19, 2010

    I’ve never read anything by Jefferson Bass. This sounds like something I would enjoy. However, it’s motherhood’s worse nightmare. I can’t imagine not only losing a child and then find out that something like this has happened.

  2. Lelia - April 20, 2010

    Dr. Bass is very cool, the guy who started the Body Farm in Tennessee. I really liked Death’s Acre and Beyond the Body Farm, the two books that tell about Bass’s career and the cases he worked on.

  3. The Bone Thief: A Body Farm Novel, Jefferson Bass » Top audio books - May 17, 2010

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