Good Book, Bad Title

This book is really about the career of forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Bass not a detailed account of the inner workings of the Body farm as the title of the book would indicate.

An engaging storyteller, Dr. Bass shares his career successes and mistakes with the reader. He is an anthropologist and therefore it shouldn't surprise anyone that most of the stories deal with the study of bones (though he does throw a few other subjects in.) He will educate the reader on the skeletal differences between the sexes as well as different races...but you find out little about the research facility known as the Body Farm.

If the title of the book had been different I think I would have rated it higher, instead it left me feeling mislead and a bit disappointed.

Just what is a Body Farm?

In this book Bass explains the body farm and quite openly and graphic. If you're going to write about this topic don't hold back or censor. This is very interesting science indeed. A science that we unfortunately require to learn how to identify killers. Bass takes you through the farm and describes different studies being done with, well, dead people. Tests that will give time of death of bodies days old, months and years in different environments. It is graffic and it is interesting.

I enjoy Bass telling stories of true crimes he has been involved with. Also in this book he tells of the true story of the crematorium that made National news sometime ago. Of how loved ones sent their deceased to the hands of this crematorium only to find later that the bodies were never cremated but stored, stacked in sheds, strewn about the grounds. This is just one of the stories he tells.

The farm, however is the main subject of the book. Bodies left to decompose in many different manners to help solve murders.

An Interesting Account by the "Mayor"... of the "Body Farm"

"Death's Acre..." by Dr. Bill Bass & Jon Jefferson, NY, G.P.Putnam's Sons, 2003 - ISBN 0-39915134-6 (hc), 6 in. x 9 in., 280 pg. plus Appendices, bone charts, glossary, index & foreword by Patricia Cornwell.

"DA..." is an easy to read expose (largely non-technical) of the Anthropological Research Facility or "Body Farm", a unique research facility first conceived & established in 1980 by Dr. Bill Bass, forensic anthropologist at the Univ. Tennessee. Basically, this is a secluded retreat where human corpses are placed on surfaces, buried, or submerged in water -- Then, photos & diverse inquires made of rate of decomposition, saponification, mass, temperature, destruction by maggots, hornets, beetles, etc., & remains (teeth, bones, chemicals) for purpose of using data to determine sex, race, age, size and time since death (time of death) for forensic purposes.

The book's voice Dr. Bass, written by Jefferson, is in a cozy, mindful & quick-witted style affording appropriate insight into death, dying & the dead. All told, an autobiography (irregular time-line) of Dr. Bass, revealing lives & deaths of his parents, 3 marriages, his heart problem, success & notoriety of the Body Farm, & his achievements & personal recognition by peers. His self-satisfaction attitude is deserved, his drollery is homespun. To read this book is to then know Dr. Bass. He's one of the good guys...