Meet the Author: Jefferson Bass

Writes: The Body Farm novels – forensic thrillers featuring the real-life forensic research facility in Tennessee widely known as “the Body Farm.” The newest (9th!) installment in the series is THE BREAKING POINT, in which the protagonist, bone detective Bill Brockton, faces a series of Job-like trials and tribulations in his professional and personal life. The dirty little secret about ‘Jefferson Bass’:

True confession: there is no ‘Jefferson Bass.’ Well, that’s not exactly true. To be
precise, pedantic, and full-disclosure(ish) about it, there’s a “Jefferson”
(writer/documentary-maker Jon Jefferson) and there’s a “Bass” (forensic guru Bill Bass,
Ph.D. – anthropology professor, founder of the Body Farm, and longtime consultant to
the FBI, the TBI – Tennessee Bureau of Investigation – and scads of other law-
enforcement agencies in the U.S. and overseas). We like to believe that the whole is
more than the sum of the parts – that’s our story, and we’re sticking to it!

The backstory: The Jefferson-Bass collaboration began in 1999, when Jefferson called Bass out of the blue to ask permission to film a TV documentary about the Body Farm and its pioneering advances in forensic research – research that uses donated bodies to explore the processes and timing of postmortem decay: knowledge that helps police pinpoint when a murder victim was killed, so detectives can narrow the timeline of their investigations. The resulting National Geographic documentary, “Biography of a Corpse,” fascinated (and perhaps also grossed out) millions of viewers around the world. It also sparked a collaboration that has included two nonfiction books and a series of New York Times bestsellers. Our hero:

Dr. Bill Brockton possesses the academic credentials of Dr. Bill Bass: a Ph.D. in
forensic anthropology, a faculty job as chairman of the Anthropology Dept. at the
University of Tennessee, and a gruesome research facility populated with donated
cadavers in various states of disrepair. He also possesses the more perilous attributes
of Jon Jefferson: a reckless – er, adventurous – nature, a willingness to take crazy
risks (Jefferson has parachuted, bungee-jumped, cliff-climbed, and spent years flying a
fast homemade airplane, using up 8 of his 9 lives but having a whee of a time). Bass
has never taken a drink or gotten a speeding ticket in his life; for Jefferson, both of
those are frequent occurrences…

What sets us apart from other forensic authors: For one thing, the forensic science in our novels is accurate: no magic computer programs that create hyper-realistic facial reconstructions from a bare skull; no instant DNA analyses; no superhuman fisticuffs or martial-arts prowess. For another, our vibrant descriptions of settings, ranging from the sights and sounds (and smells) of the Body Farm and the ginseng- and kudzu-laden hills of East Tennessee to the dry, dun mountains of Southern California, where THE BREAKING POINT opens with a fiery plane crash. Favorite quotes from reviews: “Filled with memorable characters, based on accurate forensic science and written with more flair and literary sensibility than anything by John Grisham or Patricia Cornwell” Charlotte Observer “Southern-fried forensics. Nothing too fancy, but it does taste good going down” Kirkus Reviews

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About Jefferson Bass

Jefferson Bass is the writing team of Dr. Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson.

Dr. Bass, a world-renowned forensic anthropologist, founded the University of
Tennessee's Anthropology Research Facility -- the Body Farm -- a quarter-century ago.
He is the author or coauthor of more than two hundred scientific publications, as well
as a critically acclaimed memoir about his career, Death's Acre. Dr. Bass is also a
dedicated teacher, honored as National Professor of the Year by the Council for
Advancement and Support of Education.

Jefferson is a veteran journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. His writings have
been published in the New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, and Popular Science and
broadcast on National Public Radio. The coauthor of Death's Acre, he is also the writer
and producer of two highly rated National Geographic documentaries about the Body Farm.

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About THE BREAKING POINT

Past, present, and future collide to throw respected forensic anthropologist Bill Brockton’s successful, secure life into devastating turmoil in this poignant novel in the New York Times bestselling Body Farm mystery series. It’s been ten years since Dr. Bill Brockton created the Body Farm—the world’s first postmortem research facility dedicated to advancing the frontiers of forensic science— and the researcher is at the pinnacle of his career. Under his leadership, the University of Tennessee’s forensic anthropology program has become the most prominent in the world, and Brockton’s skills and knowledge are in high demand among top law enforcement. Calling him in for a number of high profile cases, the FBI now wants him to identify the charred remains of a maverick millionaire, killed in a fiery plane crash. But a storm is about to hit Brockton with cataclysmic force. First, his identification of the crash victim is called into question. Then he receives a threatening message from the serial killer who attempted to murder the scientist and his family a decade ago. And from Brockton’s beloved wife Kathleen—his lodestone and his source of security —he gets the most shocking news of all. Will Brockton be able to weather this deluge . . . or has he finally reached the breaking point?