The Inquisitor's Key (Body Farm Series #7)

by Jefferson Bass

Overview

The most riveting and ambitious novel to date in Jefferson Bass’ New York Times bestselling Body Farm mystery series, The Inquisitor’s Key takes forensic investigator Dr. Bill Brockton to Avignon, France, and embroils him in a deadly religious mystery that could shake the Vatican itself to its very foundations.  Another sterling crime novel in the vein of Patricia Cornwell, Kathy Reichs, and Karin Slaughter, as well as TV’s C.S.I., The Inquisitor’s Key adds a touch of James Rollins and The Da Vinci Code to the typically acclaimed Jefferson Bass mix of suspense, surprise, and finely detailed forensic investigation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061807060
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	01/29/2013
Series:	Body Farm Series , #7
Pages:	496
Sales rank:	166,005
Product dimensions:	4.10(w) x 7.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Jefferson Bass is the writing team of Jon Jefferson and Dr. Bill Bass. Dr. Bass, a world-renowned forensic anthropologist, is the creator of the University of Tennessee's Anthropology Research Facility, widely known as the Body Farm. He is the author or coauthor of more than two hundred scientific publications, as well as a critically acclaimed memoir about his career at the Body Farm, Death's Acre. Dr. Bass is also a dedicated teacher, honored as U.S. Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Jon 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.

What People are Saying About This

Katherine Ramsland

“The Sherlock Holmes for bones has arrived. . . . A privileged glimpse into the world of a ground-breaking pioneer.”

Editorial Reviews

Carved in Bone has a unique corpse, solid science, quirky humor and a loveable protagonist. That a novel like this can be described as charming is a tribute to the team that created some very human, down-to-earth characters.

USA Today

This series . . . just keeps getting better. [Bones of Betrayal] features both the most compelling story and the best portrayal yet of Brockton, who has completed the transition from fictional representation of coauthor Bass to fully realized protagonist.

Booklist

Dr. Bill Brockton too often acts like a cookie-cutter action hero in the pseudonymous Bass’s seventh novel featuring the Tennessee bone expert (after 2011’s The Bone Yard), an awkward blend of a conspiratorial religious thriller and a forensic procedural. Brockton drops his work on a dead undercover DEA agent to rush to France after hearing that his assistant and budding love interest, Miranda Lovelady, is about to be operated on. To his surprise, and to the detriment of some plausibility, he learns on arrival that the message was a hoax to bring him to Europe to tackle the mother of all forensic anthropological exams—determining whether a skeleton is, in fact, that of Jesus Christ himself. While Brockton’s exam and his related analysis of the evidence concerning the provenance of the Shroud of Turin fascinate, a mélange of assassination attempts and hostage-taking distracts from the science. Bass is the writing team of Dr. Bill Bass, a forensic anthropologist, and journalist Jon Jefferson. Agent: Giles Anderson, Anderson Literary Agency.(May)

Publishers Weekly

A superb mystery novel—well-plotted, filled with memorable characters, based on accurate forensic science and written with more flair and literary sensibility than anything by John Grisham. The novel, in fact, is in Cornwell’s league, high praise indeed.

Charlotte Observer

A superb mystery novel—well-plotted, filled with memorable characters, based on accurate forensic science and written with more flair and literary sensibility than anything by John Grisham. The novel, in fact, is in Cornwell’s league, high praise indeed.

Charlotte Observer on The Devil's Bones

The Sherlock Holmes for bones has arrived. . . . A privileged glimpse into the world of a ground-breaking pioneer.

Katherine Ramsland

Can the ancient bones discovered in a stone chest in Avignon, France, possibly be the remains of Jesus of Nazareth? Urgently summoned from the scene of a more mundane horrible killing in Tennessee to find out, forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Brockton investigates with the Vatican and a religious zealot bearing down on him. The latest installment in the Body Farm series (Carved in Bone, 2006, etc.) explores the mysteries surrounding the Shroud of Turin. Brockton and Miranda Lovelady, his protégé and the object of his unstated romantic desires, determine from a forensic reconstruction of its face that the ancient skull may indeed have been the basis for the faded image on the Shroud. When lab tests on a tooth from the skull reveal the bones are 2,000 years old, all bets are on. The investigation takes Brockton and Miranda from France to Italy to Switzerland, each stop more dangerous than the last. Their French associate, Stefan, who has a thing for Miranda himself, has hidden motives. René Descartes, the French investigator who arrives on the scene after a gruesome murder (he claims to be a descendent of the philosopher), proves to be untrustworthy. And a madman calling himself Reverend Jonah kidnaps Miranda. Bass (the team of noted forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Bass and science writer Jon Jefferson) is a solid storyteller who inspires credibility with scientific expertise. The book also reveals a keen interest in art and history in scenes set in 14th century Avignon, where intrigue surrounds the painter Simone Martini's discovery of Christ's remains, which were hidden by Pope Benedict, and the death portrait of Jesus he commits to a piece of fabric. But as competent as this book is, it lacks the swirling dramatic intensity of The Da Vinci Code, which Brockton mentions in passing, and the suspense is less than gripping. This novel isn't better than average as a thriller, but it provides plenty of food for thought about religious artifacts and their role in people's lives.

Kirkus Reviews