Jefferson Bass Books in Order

This lab and field manual explains how to identify human bones and reconstruct a skeleton, with practical guidance used in archaeology and forensic work. It is a technical reference rather than a narrative read.

Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson take readers inside the real Body Farm and the cases that helped build modern forensic anthropology. It is part memoir, part true crime, and full of the practical science behind how bones and decomposition tell a story.

Dr. Bill Brockton leaves Tennessee's Body Farm for a remote mountain community, where a mummified young woman found in a cave reopens a thirty-year-old mystery. The science is sharp, but the local secrets are even deadlier.

This nonfiction follow-up revisits real cases from Bill Bass's career, from lost planes and disaster victims to historical mysteries. It shows how forensic anthropology works in the field, and how new tools keep changing what investigators can learn.

After a battered body turns up in Chattanooga, Brockton helps re-create the crime at the Body Farm. Then a second corpse appears, and the evidence points straight at him, forcing him to use his own forensic skills to prove he is not the killer.

A charred body in a burned car sends Brockton into the grim science of fire and cremation. His case soon collides with a sinister set of cremated remains and the return of an old enemy.

Called to Oak Ridge, Brockton investigates a gruesome death with roots in the Manhattan Project and the long shadow of World War II. The case mixes forensic puzzle-solving with buried secrets from Oak Ridge's past.

A routine exhumation for a DNA test turns ugly when Brockton finds a corpse mutilated after burial. His search leads to a black market in body parts and an undercover gamble that could cost him far more than his professional reputation.

Brockton heads to Florida when bones begin surfacing near a notorious boys' reform school. What starts as a forensic consultation becomes a search for lost victims, old abuse, and the people still willing to kill to keep it buried.

In this short prequel set in Avignon, Inspector René Descartes investigates a museum break-in that leads to a forged art trail and a charred corpse. The case edges toward the larger mystery that draws Brockton and Miranda to France.

In Avignon, Miranda Lovelady uncovers a stone chest said to hold the bones of Jesus, pulling Brockton into a high-stakes clash of faith, history, and forensic science. The case turns deadly as rival interests close in.

This prequel goes back to the early 1990s, as Brockton arrives at the University of Tennessee and launches the Body Farm. While he fights to build the new facility, a string of murders suggests a killer from his past may be back.

Set early in Brockton's Tennessee career, this novella follows one of his first murder investigations after he joins the University of Tennessee. A rural death scene, a hostile sheriff, and an angry crowd push the young scientist into a fight for his future.

On an Amazon river cruise, Cotton Malone teams up with Sigma Force commander Gray Pierce to stop a rogue botanist. Their target wants to sell a rare orchid that produces a deadly neurotoxin, and the buyers aren’t worried about mass casualties.

This true account follows Bill Bass as he reopens the disputed identification of Leoma Patterson, decades after her murder. What begins as an exhumation for DNA testing turns into a knotty case about evidence, memory, and the limits of certainty.

Ten years after creating the Body Farm, Brockton is asked to identify a wealthy man killed in a fiery plane crash. The case spirals into professional doubt, threats from an old serial killer, and deeply personal news that shakes his home life.

When skeletal remains chained to a tree point to a hateful and brutal crime, Brockton and Miranda start digging for a victim's identity. Then escaped serial killer Nick Satterfield returns, turning a forensic investigation into a very personal siege.