Product Description

On a wooded hillside in Tennessee blowflies, bacteria and buzzards feast on human flesh, unhindered by coffins or mausoleums. They're buried in shallow graves; submerged in tanks of water; concealed under slabs of concrete; locked in the boots and backseats of rusting cars. They are serving the needs of science in the cause of justice. In DEATH'S ACRE Dr Bill Bass, the facility's founder and one of the world's leading forensic scientists, describes how he created it and how the work of he and his colleagues have brought murderers to justice and cleared the names of the innocent. Within a riveting narrative he details his own career and the many criminal cases he has been involved in, bringing forensic science vividly to life and highlighting its crucial role in modern day policing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33965 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Review
'Bass's moving account is a surprisingly accessible read.' The Times 'It embraces some of the great issues: the perpetual conflict of good versus evil, and the human virtues of enthusiasm, commitment and intellectual inquiry. It just happens, also, to be extremely well written.' James Le Fanu

About the Author
Dr William Bass is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, where he established the 'body farm' in 1981. He is recognised as the world's leading forensic anthropologist. Jon Jefferson is a journalist and producer with the National Geographic Channel.

Customer Reviews

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In all honesty, this book labours under a pretty distinct false pretence. Well, an implied one. From the blurb and the cover, you may infer this to be a book about the Anthropology Research Facility (or, to give it its more colourful soubriquet, the body farm) but it isn’t really. The implied impression is misleading. Instead, it is really a biography of Dr Bill Bass who is, as the author info puts it, a “colossus of forensic anthropology”. Among other topics, it charts his career in forensics, from when he first began excavating Arikara graves in South Dakota, to the present day. He presents us with some of his most striking cases, with several chapters almost turning into short forensic detective stories.

As background along the way, we are also treated to a brief history of forensic anthropology. We see the development of the science, and how crucial techniques investigators now use in their work first came into being. The “body farm”, of course, does feature, sometimes very heavily, but it is not really the focus of the book. Still, readers who pick this up solely for a book about the farm shouldn’t be disappointed; we still discover plenty about it and its history, still get an insight into its workings, the methods of those who work there to investigate the processes at work on the body after death, and still get plenty of anecdotes about how the work at the body farm has helped in many forensic cases. There’s a wealth of information, but there is a lot more about other general matters.

“Death’s Acre” is possibly the perfect book for anyone who is marginally interested in forensics. It doesn’t glorify it by any means (anyway, is it possible to truly glorify decaying flesh?) or remove any of the unpleasantness, but it does present it in a riveting light. It treats its subject with respect, and goes into a detail that is fascinating but never brutal or exploitive.

It is also a strangely warm book. There’s a strong humanity which comes through from Dr Bass himself. He both loves his subject and hates that it is necessary. It is his personality which softens this book, gives it its compassion and humour and removes some of the harsh edge. Some may not welcome that, but I did. It may cover a sometimes unpleasant topic, but it is strangely comforting.

Something else that makes this such an interesting and unthreatening read is the language. Techniques are explained well (even if the writing does feed off a truly American adulation of acronyms) and the science comes to life.

There are a couple of downsides, though. At times, the descriptive writing is rather awkwardly melodramatic. Phrases are thrown in to add drama and instead had me rolling my eyes. “Dr Snow and I were located in Lexington, just thirty miles from the scene of that early-morning truck collision. Although I didn’t know it at the time, I was about to collide head-on with my future,” for example. This sort of overblown language just didn’t sit right. For the most part, though, is well-told and entertaining to read, and I admit that I did think a one or two of the descriptions were rather inspired, as in the case of “a rattlesnake with a neck as thick as a grave-digger’s wrist”.

I must also admit that by the finish the constant flow of unidentified bodies was growing tiresome. There are a quite of few of these sorts of cases covered in detail, and I got a little bored of our team of intrepid investigators receiving phone calls and tramping out to scenes, then having to undergo the arduous task of identifying skeletons again and again. It was interesting the first couple of times, but by the end I felt so acquainted with the process that I was keen to have a bash myself and get it over with. (“Ah, yes. The pubic symphysis has clearly ossified. From this I can conclude that our victim was…”)

Overall, though, this is warm, entertaining and informative trawl through the history and techniques of forensic anthropology, Dr Bill Bass’s life, and the body farm. For those interested in the subject (and I imagine many who read crime fiction are) then this comes highly recommended.

Death's Acre - an intro for the intelligent not the lookyloo
Dr. Bass and his co-author Jon Jefferson have handled a fascinating subject in a way that promotes interest without arousing disgust in a subject that is, all to often, automatically regarded as 'revolting' and 'only fit for wierdos'. Death and decay are equally important to life and its continuance as are the far 'nicer' and therefore 'acceptable' aspects of conception and birth, but in modern times is shunned by society to a ridiculous extent; to a point where something formerly an everday and familiar part of life has become so unfamiliar that it is feared out of all proportion - and as do all things forbidden, become a focus of attraction for the curious and the profiteer.

The fact remains that the study of death in all its aspects is
valuable not only for the secrets of the human story it holds, but one of immense moral significance because it reveals indisputable truths about certain events - and it is truth alone that can alone attain that highest human ideal of justice.

Dr. Bass has done us a great service in enabling the ordinary person a close view of the value of the study of the death process and how he has achieved this remarkable advance in forensic science. I look forward with anticipation to finding and studying his academic articles and works.

Awesome book, highly recommended
This is the most interesting book I have read in a long time.

Although, as the reviewer below mentions, it is more of a autobiography of Bill Bass than a book solely about the Tennessee Anthropology Research Facility, I think it would have been a rather less-exciting book if it had only focused on the Body Farm itself.
This book contains accounts of actual forensic cases which help to explain how the Body Farm came into being and, rather than being purely factual, the author weaves all of these short accounts into a brilliant true story.

It is extremely well-written and there is a lot of information about human physiology, anthropology and forensics, which, because of the clear and friendly way it is explained, is very easy to understand (there are even anatomical drawings of the human body and skull at the back of the book).

Reads like a novel; you might even find that you learn something along the way.

Very enjoyable read.