Tangled Web UK Review April 2008
Carved in Bone: A Body Farm Novel by
Jefferson Bass
pbk out April 08
(Quercus)
at £6.99
The second of the Body Farm series is something of a post-modern phenomenon, and the more interesting for it.
In the information age any new author has to cope with the increased awareness of their predecessors. Jefferson Bass does this in style, not only dedicating Carved in Bone to Patricia Cornwell, but also mentioning her creation, Dr Kay Scarpetta, in the text, in acknowledgement of the author who brought international fame to the University of Tennessee’s Anthropological Research Facility. Ms Cornwell has indeed had a huge influence on crime fiction, and the significance of her debut, Postmortem, can only be appreciated nearly twenty years later, with the dominance of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and its numerous imitations in small screen crime, and - to a lesser extent - in print.
What, then, does Jefferson Bass have to offer?
‘Jefferson Bass’ is in fact the partnership of Dr Bill Bass, the founder of the Body Farm, and Jon Jefferson, a journalist and screenwriter. With the current commercially-motivated trend in collaborations - typically a bestselling author with a ghost writer - Jefferson Bass makes a welcome change. On the one hand, readers are assured that all the technical details and inside information about the Body Farm will be correct; on the other, there is no danger of the story becoming bogged down in anthropological detail.
This is perhaps why the novel works so well. It is a gritty, realistic murder mystery which wastes no time in diving straight into the plot. Dr Bill Brockton is summoned from his work at the Body Farm when a mummified corpse is found in a cave in the Appalachian Mountains. From the outset, the cutting-edge research at the Body Farm is contrasted with the lack of sophistication of Cooke County’s residents and law enforcement officers, quickly creating conflict and tension. The use of the first person by Brockton brings a sense of immediacy to a narrative which combines hardboiled professionalism with human sensitivity.
Brockton is a complex and convincing character for whom the gruesome discovery provides a particular challenge, covered in a unique abundance of grave wax. It quickly becomes apparent that Sheriff Kitchings has a personal stake in the circumstances of the thirty year old murder, as does local criminal ‘Big Jim’ O’Conner. When Brockton discovers the identity of the corpse, he finds himself in the middle of an irreconcilable feud between the two men, and doesn’t know which to trust. His adventures are both plausible and rich in local colour - one sees him chewing tobacco at an illegal cockfight - and conclude with a satisfying solution to the mystery.
The Body Farm series is advertised as being in the style of Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs, which is not quite fair. Despite Ms Cornwell’s The Body Farm in 1994, the work of the Jefferson Bass team is original and fresh. Many readers will also find them more compelling than their illustrious predecessors - the cutting edge of forensic crime fiction.
(
Rafe McGregor
Rafe's own site - www.rafemcgregor.co.uk)
Thousands of New and used Books at your Fingertips...
Support Tangled Web - Buy Your Books Online
