Bonus Content
The Bone Yard
I held the last of the dead man’s bones in my left hand. It was his skull, which I cradled upside down in my palm, as comfortably and naturally as an NBA player might hold a basketball. As I searched for a place to hide it, I felt the tip of my index finger absentmindedly tracing the edges of a hole in the right temple. It was a square-cornered opening, about the size of a small postage stamp, and it had been punched by a murder weapon—a weapon I’d tucked into a tangle of honeysuckle vines a few moments before. The honeysuckle was in bloom, and its fragrance was an odd contrast to the underlying odor of death. Funny thing, I thought, how something that smells so good can grow in a place that smells so bad.
Chattering voices floated up the hillside, growing louder as the people came closer. If I didn’t hurry, I’d be caught with the skull in my hand. Still I hesitated, turning the cranium right side up for one last look into the vacant eye orbits. What did I hope to see there—what meaning did I think I might find—in those empty sockets? Maybe nothing. Maybe only the emptiness itself.
As the voices drew nearer, I finally forced myself to act, to choose. I tucked the skull under the edge of a fallen oak tree, piling dead leaves against the trunk as camouflage. Then a worry popped into my head: Is the pile of leaves too obvious, a giveaway? But it was too late to second-guess myself; I’d run out of time, and the makeshift hiding place would have to do.
Stepping over the tree, I strolled downhill toward the cluster of people approaching. I feigned nonchalance, resisting the urge to glance back and check for visible bones. A woman at the front of the group—a thirtysomething blonde with the energetic, outdoorsy look of a runner or a cyclist—stopped in her tracks and looked at me. Her eyes bored into mine, and I wondered what she saw there. I tried to make my face as blank and unenlightening as the skull’s had been.
She shifted her gaze to the wooded slope behind me. Her eyes scanned the forest floor, then settled on the fallen tree. Walking slowly toward it, she leaned down, studied both sides, and then brushed at the leaves I’d piled on the uphill side. “There’s a skull beside this log,” she announced to the group. She said it as coolly as if it were an everyday occurrence, finding a skull in the woods.
“Wow,” said a young red-haired woman in a black jumpsuit. “Police, one; Brockton, zero. If Dr. B decides to turn killer, he’d better steer clear of Florida.”
From the book THE BONE YARD: A Body Farm Novel by Jefferson Bass. Copyright © 2011 by Jefferson Bass, LLC. Reprinted by permission of William Morrow an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
The Bone Yard
A search for buried secrets sends Dr. Bill Brockton careening from the backwoods of Tennessee to the shady side of the Sunshine State in Jefferson Bass’ sixth Body Farm thriller, The Bone Yard.
A forensic analyst at Florida’s state crime lab, Angie St. Clair knows murder when she sees it. She knows that her sister, Kate, was murdered—and by whom. But proving it isn’t going to be easy: the local coroner, having ruled Kate’s death a suicide, has acceded to her husband’s demand to inter the body speedily.
With his powerful connections, Brockton offers to help Angie, his former student, determine the truth and get justice for her sister. But one case leads to another when he’s asked to consult on a partial skull found in the woods near a burnt-out reformatory for boys.
Back in 1967, nine boys and a guard were killed when the building burned to the ground. But local lore has it that the school had a reputation for brutal disciplinary methods—its troubled students understood that one wrong move could get them an early grave. As Brockton and his team investigate, they find skeletons in some surprisingly prominent closets…and if Brockton isn't careful, he may earn his own plot in the bone yard.
Hardcover : 336 pages
Publisher: Morrow ( March 08, 2011 )
Item #: 13-349255
ISBN: 9780061806780
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.25 x 0.75inches
Product Weight: 13.0 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Disturbing 
April 08, 2011
Really like the writing style of these two authors - Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Bass, but this story line was very disturbing and upsetting for me. I can normally handle a lot of things, but this particular story was just too much. I like "The Bone Thief" much better. Will continue to read their work as long as the story is not similar to this one. I look forward to learning more about the main character - Dr. Brockton.
Reviewer: Stacey H
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