Full Description
"Fans of the forensics-oriented novels of such mystery writers as Kathy Reichs and Patricia Cornwell...not to mention television series like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, will make an eager audience for this one."—Booklist
On a patch of land in the Tennessee hills, human corpses decompose in the open air, aided by insects, bacteria, and birds, unhindered by coffins or mausoleums. This is Bill Bass's "Body Farm," where nature takes its course as bodies buried in shallow graves, submerged in water, or locked in car trunks serve the needs of science and the cause of justice.
In Death's Acre, Bass invites readers on an unprecedented journey behind the gates of the Body Farm where he revolutionized forensic anthropology. A master scientist and an engaging storyteller, Bass reveals his most intriguing cases for the first time. He revisits the Lindbergh kidnapping and murder, explores the mystery of a headless corpse whose identity astonished police, divulges how the telltale traces of an insect sent a murderous grandfather to death row—and much more.
INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS
Contents
Death's AcreForeword by Patricia Cornwall
1. The Bones of the Eaglet
2. Dead Indians and Dam Engineers
3. Bare Bones: Forensics 101
4. The Unsavory Uncle
5. The Case of the Headless Corpse
6. The Scene of the Crime
7. Death's Acre: The Body Farm Is Born
8. A Bug for Research
9. Progress and Protest
10. Fat Sam and Cadillac Joe
11. Grounded in Science
12. The Zoo Man Murders
13. Parts Unknown
14. Art Imitates Death
15. More Progress, More Protest
16. The Backyard Barbeque
17. The Not-So-Accidental Tourist
18. the Bloody Beneficiary
19. Ashes to Ashes
20. And When I Die
Appendix I: Bones of the Human Skeleton
Appendix II: Glossary of Forensic and Anthropological Terms
Acknowledgments
Index
