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Death's Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab -- the Body Farm -- Where the Dead Do Tell Tales
by William M. Bass & Jon Jefferson
Foreword By: Patricia Cornwell
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product
details
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Hardcover:
300
pages; Dimensions (in inches): 9.10 x 5.30 x
1.00 |
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Publisher:
Putnam Publishing Group (October 2003) |
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ISBN:
0399151346 |
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book
description
Nowhere is there another lab like Dr. Bill Bass's: On a hillside in Tennessee, human bodies decompose in the open air, aided by insects, bacteria, and birds, unhindered by coffins or mausoleums. At the "Body Farm," nature takes its course, with corpses buried in shallow graves, submerged in water, concealed beneath slabs of concrete, locked in trunks of cars. As stand-ins for murder victims, they serve the needs of science - and the cause of justice. For thirty years, Dr. Bass's research has revolutionized the field of forensic science, particularly by pinpointing "time since death" in murder cases. In this riveting book, he investigates real cases and leads readers on an unprecedented journey behind the locked gates of the Body Farm. A master scientist and an engaging storyteller, Bass shares his most intriguing work: his revisit of the Lindbergh kidnapping and murder, fifty years after the fact; the mystery of a headless corpse whose identity astonished the police; the telltale bugs that finally sent a murderous grandfather to death row; and many more.
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editorial
reviews
Publishers
Weekly
In this memoir, Bass, a premier forensic anthropologist, recounts how a life spent studying dead bodies led to the creation of "The Anthropolgy Research Facility" (aka the Body Farm), a plot of land near the University of Tennessee Medical Center where Bass and his colleagues monitor the decomposition of human corpses in various environments. The book is structured around the 1981 creation of the Body Farm, and the early chapters focus on some of Bass's trickier cases to demonstrate his need for more information about the science of forensics. The later chapters take a closer look at how the scientific analysis of Body Farm corpses has helped Bass and other anthropologists solve some of the toughest and most bizarre cases of their distinguished careers. Though professional and conscientious when describing the medical facts of each case, Bass, writing with journalist Jefferson, proves to be a witty storyteller with a welcome sense of humor. He also does a nice job balancing accounts of death and decomposition with decidedly not-so-morbid tidbits from his personal life. Furthermore, the poignancy of how he reacts to the deaths of his first two wives reflects the compassion he feels for the dead and their surviving family members he encounters in his working life. Bass may deal with the dead, but he has a lust for life that comes across in his writing. While the grisly details may not make this a must-read for everyone, those who do pick it up might just be pleasantly surprised by how Bass brings death to life. (Nov.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
The Washington Post
This is a book for forensics purists: voyeuristic oddballs like myself who are only mildly intrigued by the details of the book's true-crime narratives, who skip ahead to the part where the forensics guys arrive with their Ziploc bags and delectably horrid puns. ("Bill, give me a hand," we hear a fingerprint expert at a crime scene say when he wants a corpse's severed hand.) The cases in Death's Acre seem to have been chosen not for the dramatic arcs of crime unfolding and justice served -- indeed, many chapters end in anticlimax -- but because they work well to illustrate the essentials of decomp science: timelines of decay, identifying burned or skeletal remains, forensic entomology. — Mary Roach
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