Jefferson Bass
Jefferson Bass is the writing team of Jon Jefferson and Dr. Bill Bass. Dr. Bass, a world-renowned forensic anthropologist, is the creator of the University of Tennessee's Anthropology Research Facility, widely known as the Body Farm. He is the author or coauthor of more than two hundred scientific publications, as well as a critically acclaimed memoir about his career at the Body Farm, Death's Acre. Dr. Bass is also a dedicated teacher, honored as U.S. Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Jon Jefferson is a veteran journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. His writings have been published in the New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, and Popular Science and broadcast on National Public Radio. The coauthor of Death's Acre, he is also the writer and producer of two highly rated National Geographic documentaries about the Body Farm.
All Books By Jefferson Bass
Bones of Betrayal
- By: Jefferson Bass
- Narrator: Jefferson Bass
- Length: 9 hours 53 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: March 20, 2009
- Language: English
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4.1(5129 ratings)
World-renowned forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Bass and acclaimed journalist Jon Jefferson have combined their talents on several New York Times best-sellers. A thrilling tale of suspense, Bones of Betrayal shows why Kathy Reichs praises Bass and Jefferson’s “terrific forensic detail” and calls them “the real deal.” “Southern-fried forensics. Nothing too fancy, but it does taste good going down.”-Kirkus Reviews
... Read moreCarved in Bone
- By: Jefferson Bass
- Length: 9 hours 11 minutes
- Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
- Publish date: February 18, 2020
- Language: English
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3.92(12601 ratings)
There is a patch of ground in Tennessee dedicated to the science of death, where human remains lie exposed to be studied for their secrets. The real-life scientist who founded the “Body Farm” has broken cold cases and revolutionized forensics . . . and now he spins an astonishing tale inspired by his own experiences.
Renowned anthropologist Dr. Bill Brockton has spent his career surrounded by death at the Body Farm. Now he’s being called upon to help solve a baffling puzzle in a remote mountain community. The mummified corpse of a young woman dead for thirty years has been discovered in a cave, the body bizarrely preserved and transformed by the environment’s unique chemistry. But Brockton’s investigation is threatening to open old wounds among an insular people who won’t forget or forgive. And a long-buried secret prematurely exposed could inflame Brockton’s own guilt-and the dangerous hostility of bitter enemies determined to see him fail . . . by any means necessary.
Cut to the Bone
- By: Jefferson Bass
- Narrator: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 10 hours 28 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: September 24, 2013
- Language: English
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4.09(2340 ratings)
Jefferson Bass’s Cut to the Bone, the long-awaited prequel to his New York Times bestselling mystery series, turns the clock back to reveal the Body Farm’s creation–and Dr. Bill Brockton’s deadly duel with a serial killer.
In the summer of 1992, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton and Tennessee Senator Albert Gore begin their long-shot campaign to win the White House. In the sweltering hills of Knoxville at the University of Tennessee, Dr. Bill Brockton, the bright, ambitious young head of the Anthropology Department, launches an unusual–some would call it macabre–research facility, unlike any other in existence.
Brockton is determined to revolutionize the study of forensics to help law enforcement better solve crime. But his plans are derailed by a chilling murder that leaves the scientist reeling from a sense of deja vu. Followed by another. And then another: bodies that bear eerie resemblances to cases from Brockton’s past.
But as the body count rises, the victims’ fatal injuries grow more and more distinctive–a spiral of death that holds dark implications for Brockton…and everyone he holds dear.
... Read moreFlesh and Bone
- By: Jefferson Bass
- Narrator: Erik Singer
- Length: 5 hours 55 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: January 23, 2007
- Language: English
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4.06(8796 ratings)
Dr. Bill Brockton, the founder of the world-famous Body Farm, is hard at work on a troubling new case. A young man’s battered body has been found in nearby Chattanooga, and it’s up to the talented Dr. Brockton to assemble the pieces of the forensic puzzle. Brockton is brought into the case by the rising star of the state’s medical examiners, Jess Carter.
Just as they’re on the verge of breaking the case open, events take a terrifying turn. Brockton has re-created the gruesome Chattanooga death scene at the Body Farm, but a killer places another corpse at the site, putting Brockton’s career and even his life in jeopardy. Soon Brockton is accused of the horrific new crime, and the once-beloved professor becomes an outcast. Brockton must use all of his forensic skills to prove his own innocence…before he ends up behind bars with some of the very killers he’s helped to convict.
Flesh and Bone is another roller-coaster ride into the world of forensic anthropology, raising powerful questions about the nature of justice, loyalty, honor, and evil. This astonishing novel confirms Jefferson Bass as one of our most talented authors of suspense.
Performed by Erik Singer
... Read moreIdentity Crisis
- By: Jefferson Bass
- Length: 1 hours 42 minutes
- Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
- Publish date: February 11, 2020
- Language: English
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3.99(736 ratings)
Renowned forensic anthropologist Bill Bass-founder of the Body Farm-tackles one of his most baffling cases ever in this real-life spellbinder.
In 1978, fifty-six-year-old Leoma Patterson left a bar in Clinton, Tennessee, and was never seen again. Six months later, a female skeleton was found on a wooded lakeshore in a neighboring county. The bones were consistent with those of the missing woman, and one of Patterson’s daughters recognized a ring found at the death scene as her mother’s. The bones were buried, and six years later, a relative of Patterson’s-one of the men she was last seen alive with-confessed to killing her. Case closed.
But the tentative identification-made years before DNA testing was available to confirm it-failed to convince some of Patterson’s relatives. And so it was that in 2005 Dr. Bass found himself winding around hairpin curves to the mountainside grave, where he would unearth the disputed remains and collect DNA samples. The forensic twists and turns that followed would test the limits of DNA technology . . . and of Dr. Bass’s half-century of forensic knowledge.
The Bone Thief
- By: Jefferson Bass
- Narrator: Dan Woren
- Length: 9 hours 55 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: March 23, 2010
- Language: English
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4.05(4217 ratings)
“The Body Farm novels have become bestsellers because of their attention to the fine details of forensics combined with great plot lines.”
—Deseret News (Salt Lake City)
The latest Body Farm novel from New York Times bestseller Jefferson Bass, The Bone Thief is a must for fans of Patricia Cornwell and TV’s C.S.I. The hero of four previous thrillers–Carved in Bone, The Devil’s Bones, Flesh and Bone, and Bones of Betrayal–Dr. Bill Brockton must stop a grisly black market dealing in body parts and cadavers in this white-knuckle adventure written by the man widely considered to be the world’s foremost expert in forensic anthropology. Read The Bone Thief and discover why Kathy Reichs calls Bass, “The real deal.”
... Read moreThe Bone Yard
- By: Jefferson Bass
- Narrator: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 9 hours 36 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: March 08, 2011
- Language: English
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4.15(4985 ratings)
“[Bass is] the real deal.”
—Kathy Reichs
The sixth electrifying forensic mystery by author Jefferson Bass (“a fresh voice in the crime novel arena” —Seattle Post-Intelligencer), The Bone Yard is the most gripping installment yet in the New York Times bestselling Body Farm series. Called away from Tennessee’s renowned Body Farm (the real life human decomposition laboratory around which these remarkable thrillers are based), Dr. Bill Brockton discovers the dark side of the Sunshine state when he’s called in to investigate human remains found on the grounds of a Florida boys’ reform school. Rich in authentic forensic detail and featuring a protagonist as involving as crime fiction’s most popular medical examiners—including Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta, Karin Slaughter’s Sara Linton, and Kathy Reichs’s star forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan—The Bone Yard is unassailable evidence that this series “just keeps getting better” (Booklist).
... Read moreThe Breaking Point
- By: Jefferson Bass
- Narrator: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 11 hours 9 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: June 09, 2015
- Language: English
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4.11(1578 ratings)
Past, present, and future collide to throw respected forensic anthropologist Bill Brockton’s successful, secure life into devastating turmoil in this poignant novel in the New York Times bestselling Body Farm mystery series.
It’s been ten years since Dr. Bill Brockton created the Body Farm–the world’s first postmortem research facility dedicated to advancing the frontiers of forensic science–and the researcher is at the pinnacle of his career. Under his leadership, the University of Tennessee’s forensic anthropology program has become the most prominent in the world, and Brockton’s skills and knowledge are in high demand among top law enforcement. Calling him in for a number of high profile cases, the FBI now wants him to identify the charred remains of a maverick millionaire, killed in a fiery plane crash.
But a storm is about to hit Brockton with cataclysmic force. First, his identification of the crash victim is called into question. Then he receives a threatening message from the serial killer who attempted to murder the scientist and his family a decade ago. And from Brockton’s beloved wife Kathleen–his lodestone and his source of security–he gets the most shocking news of all. Will Brockton be able to weather this deluge . . . or has he finally reached the breaking point?
... Read moreThe Devil’s Bones
- By: Jefferson Bass
- Narrator: Tom McKeon
- Length: 5 hours 40 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: February 05, 2008
- Language: English
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4.13(6667 ratings)
In two previous New York Times bestselling novels, Jefferson Bass enthralled readers with ripped-from-the-headlines forensic cases, memorable characters, and plots that “rival Kathy Reichs and Patricia Cornwell” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer). Drawing on research at the Body Farm–three acres of land in the backwoods of Tennessee, where bodies are left to the elements to illuminate human decomposition–Bass has moved fiction to a fascinating new realm, with forensics expertise drawn from his five decades of work as the world’s leading forensic anthropologist. But this latest novel cements Jefferson Bass as one of the finest writers of suspense working today, and in a work of drama, cunning, and heartbreak, thrills the reader with fiction that feels all too real.
A woman’s charred body has been found inside a burned car perched atop a hill in Knoxville. Is it accidental death, or murder followed by arson? Forensic anthropologist Bill Brockton’s quest for answers prompts an experiment straight from Dante’s Inferno: In the dark of night, he puts bodies to the torch, researching how fire consumes flesh and bone.
In the meantime, Brockton is sent a mysterious package–a set of cremated remains that looks entirely unreal. With the help of a local crematorium, he investigates and discovers a truth too horrifying to believe: A facility in another state has not been disposing of bodies properly, instead scattering them all around the grounds.
Little does Brockton know that his research is about to collide with reality–with the force of a lit match meeting spilled gasoline. En route to trial, his nemesis, medical examiner Garland Hamilton, has escaped from custody. What follows is a deadly game of cat and mouse, played for the ultimate stakes: Brockton’s own life. With help from his loyal graduate assistant, Miranda, and ace criminalist Art Bohanan, Brockton eventually tracks Hamilton, but when the police arrive, they find only a smoldering ruin. Sifting through the ashes, Brockton finds the incinerated remains of Hamilton . . . or does he? The answer–along with Brockton’s ultimate test–comes in a searing moment of truth.
... Read moreThe Inquisitor’s Key
- By: Jefferson Bass
- Narrator: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 11 hours 24 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: May 08, 2012
- Language: English
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3.78(2578 ratings)
“The real deal.”
–Kathy Reichs
“The Sherlock Holmes for bones.”
–Katherine Ramsland, author of The Forensic Science of C.S.I.
The most riveting and ambitious novel to date in Jefferson Bass’ New York Times bestselling Body Farm mystery series, The Inquisitor’s Key takes forensic investigator Dr. Bill Brockton to Avignon, France, and embroils him in a deadly religious mystery that could shake the Vatican itself to its very foundations. Another sterling crime novel in the vein of Patricia Cornwell, Kathy Reichs, and Karin Slaughter, as well as TV’s C.S.I., The Inquisitor’s Key adds a touch of James Rollins and The Da Vinci Code to the typically acclaimed Jefferson Bass mix of suspense, surprise, and finely detailed forensic investigation.
... Read moreWithout Mercy
- By: Jefferson Bass
- Narrator: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 10 hours 13 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: October 04, 2016
- Language: English
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4.1(1353 ratings)
In the most suspenseful installment of the New York Times bestselling Body Farm series to date, forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Brockton investigates a bizarre murder–and confronts a deadly enemy he thought he’d put behind bars for good
Forensic anthropologist Bill Brockton has spent twenty-five years solving brutal murders–but none so horrific and merciless as his latest case: A ravaged set of skeletal remains is found scattered in the woods of nearby Cook County. They are all that is left of a victim who had been chained, hand and foot, to a tree on a remote mountainside. The bones tell Brockton and his longtime graduate assistant, Miranda, that the victim was a young male under the age of thirty. As they dig deeper to establish his identity, they uncover warning signs that long-simmering hatred is about to explode into violence, engulfing the region in chaos.
But the shocking case is only the beginning of Brockton’s trials. In the middle of the troubling investigation, the unthinkable happens. The most frightening and deadliest criminal Brockton has ever foiled–the sadistic serial killer Nick Satterfield–escapes from prison, bent on wreaking vengeance. And he’s had nearly twenty years to plan.
Simply killing Brockton isn’t enough. Satterfield wants to make his nemesis suffer first, by destroying everything Brockton holds dear: his son, daughter-in-law, and grandsons, and even Miranda, who’s now on the verge of completing her Ph.D. and launching a forensic career of her own.
Barraged by dangers striking from all directions, haunted by the ghosts of old cases, and desperate to save those he loves, Brockton finds himself slipping closer to the abyss. Pushed to the edge, he is forced to question the two pillars that have guided his life and his entire career–the justice system and the quality of mercy. Can the two truly coexist?
If he cannot reconcile these principles, which will Brockton choose in his ultimate moment of truth?
A harrowing, thoughtful, and provocative tale that explores what happens when one honorable, rational man is tested beyond all measure, Without Mercy is a powerful exploration that raises uneasy questions about justice and revenge, compassion and principle, the desire to kill and the will to survive.
... Read more