CARVED IN BONE By Jefferson Bass
Synopsis:
On the campus of the University of Tennessee lies a patch of ground unlike any in the world. The “Body Farm” is a place where human corpses are left to the elements, and every manner of decay is fully explored — for the sake of science and the cause of justice. The scientist who created the Body Farm has broken cold cases and revolutionized forensics, and now, in this heart-stopping novel, he spins an astonishing tale inspired by his own experiences. A woman’s corpse lies hidden in a cave in the mountains of East Tennessee. Undiscovered for thirty years, her body has been transformed by the cave’s chemistry into a near-perfect mummy — one that discloses an explosive secret to renowned anthropologist Bill Brockton. Dr. Brockton has spent his career surrounded by death and decay at the Body Farm, but even he is baffled by this case unfolding in a unique environment where nothing is quite what it seems. The surreal setting is Cooke County, a remote mountain community that’s clannish, insular, and distrustful of outsiders. The heartbreaking discovery of the young woman’s corpse reopens old wounds and rekindles feuds dating back decades. The county’s powerful and uncooperative sheriff and his inept deputy threaten to derail Brockton’s investigation altogether. So do Brockton’s other nemeses: his lingering guilt over the death of his wife, and the fury of a medical examiner whom Brockton dares to oppose in court.
Carved in Bone is a richly atmospheric, superbly suspenseful, and magnificently rendered trip into the world of forensic science, the heart of the Appalachian Mountains, and the dark passageways of the human psyche. Full of vivid characters and startling twists and turns, this thrilling novel heralds the debut of a major new voice in crime fiction — and an unforgettable work from the hand of a scientific legend.
The first book in the Body Farm series To the faculty, staff, and graduate students of the University of Tennessee’s Anthropology Department, who made the Body Farm possible…
and to Patricia Cornwell, who made it famous
PROLOGUE
I PICKED UP THE hunting knife with my left hand and tested its heft, then shifted it to my right hand to compare. Golfing and batting, I’m a lefty, but I grade papers and dial phone numbers with my right. The knife felt more at home there, too. Okay, I thought, add “stabbing” to the list of right-handed activities.
The nude man lay facedown in the woods, the Tennessee sun filtering through the trees and dappling his back. Kneeling beside him, I slid my left thumb along his spine, feeling for the gap between his fourth and fifth ribs, just behind the lower chambers of the heart. Having found the spot, I set the tip of the hunting knife there—it snagged in the soft flesh—then leaned in and began to push. It took more force than I’d expected, and I found myself using both hands, plus some weight. Once the blade was deep into the muscle tissue, I cocked the handle to the left, skewing the blade in the opposite direction, toward the man’s spine. It wasn’t angling as sharply as I wanted, so I leaned harder. Still no go. I sat back and considered whether there might be some other angle of attack that would land the tip of the blade in his right lung. As I contemplated the weapon jutting from the bare back, a black-and-white SUV, blue lights strobing, roared up and slid to a stop on a concrete slab in front of me. A young deputy leapt out, his eyes wild and his face a battleground of warring impulses. I held up my left hand, keeping a tight grip on the knife with my right. “You reckon you could hang on for just one second?” I asked. “I’m not quite done with this.” Grunting with the effort, I gave the handle one final sideways shove and bore down with all my weight. As my victim jerked and skidded from the force, a rib broke with the sound of a green tree branch splintering. The deputy fainted dead away, his fall cushioned by the corpse I knelt beside.
CHAPTER 1
FIVE MINUTES HAD PASSED since the deputy’s eyelids first fluttered open, and he still hadn’t spoken, so I figured maybe it was up to me to break the ice.