The Breaking Point: A Body Farm Novel

Bestseller Bass, the pseudonym of Jon Jefferson and Bill Bass, slathers on the melodrama with a trowel in the least accomplished of the nine Body Farm novels (after 2013’s Cut to the Bone). In 2004, the FBI seeks the skills of forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Brockton, founder of Tennessee’s Body Farm for postmortem research, after a fiery plane crash appears to have ended the life of humanitarian Richard Janus. Brockton finds evidence establishing that Janus died in the crash, but not everyone accepts his judgment. To complicate matters, the crash also killed an undocumented Mexican immigrant, who was crushed by the plane just instants before a mountain lion was set to pounce. Disaster after disaster afflicts Brockton, in both his personal and professional life. Brockton makes some mistakes that seem out of character—given the expertise of Bill Bass, the founder of the real Body Farm—and the unrelenting assault on his sanity lessens rather than increases interest. Agent: Giles Anderson, Anderson Literary Agency. (June)