What, normal people don't talk about maggots while they're eating Mexican food? From still mourning the fact that Six Feet Under is not on TV anymore to being glued to Dr. G Medical Examiner, I've always been a little on the morbid side. Therefore, I was excited to get my hands on Dr. Bill Bass's and Jon Jefferson's Death's Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales.
People who have donated their bodies to science after they pass on might end up at the legendary Body Farm in Tennessee. The Body Farm was started by Dr. Bill Bass, one of the authors of Death's Acre, to study decomposition in a controlled environment. This is fascinating in and of itself, but there is much more to the book besides the farm. As a renowned forensic anthropologist, Bass has had to make sense of thousands of corpses and skeletons. His stories are fascinating, insightful, and at times sad -- Bass always sees his job as working for the victim, finding out what really happened to him or her to get justice if needed.
Bass and Jefferson go into extreme detail, so Death's Acre is definitely not for everyone. But for those of us who love this sort of detective work, it's an absolutely fascinating read.
MY RATING - 4