Rating: 
Summary: An Interesting Account by the "Mayor"... of the "Body Farm"
Review: "Death's Acre..." by Dr. Bill Bass & Jon Jefferson, NY, G.P.Putnam's Sons, 2003 - ISBN 0-39915134-6 (hc), 6 in. x 9 in., 280 pg. plus Appendices, bone charts, glossary, index & foreword by Patricia Cornwell.
"DA..." is an easy to read expose (largely non-technical) of the Anthropological Research Facility or "Body Farm", a unique research facility first conceived & established in 1980 by Dr. Bill Bass, forensic anthropologist at the Univ. Tennessee. Basically, this is a secluded retreat where human corpses are placed on surfaces, buried, or submerged in water -- Then, photos & diverse inquires made of rate of decomposition, saponification, mass, temperature, destruction by maggots, hornets, beetles, etc., & remains (teeth, bones, chemicals) for purpose of using data to determine sex, race, age, size and time since death (time of death) for forensic purposes.
The book's voice Dr. Bass, written by Jefferson, is in a cozy, mindful & quick-witted style affording appropriate insight into death, dying & the dead. All told, an autobiography (irregular time-line) of Dr. Bass, revealing lives & deaths of his parents, 3 marriages, his heart problem, success & notoriety of the Body Farm, & his achievements & personal recognition by peers. His self-satisfaction attitude is deserved, his drollery is homespun. To read this book is to then know Dr. Bass. He's one of the good guys...
Rating: 
Summary: death's acre
Review: after reading this book, i came to conclude; i would never allow this inaccurate bone-science to ever convict me of a crime. the science seems so hit-and-miss. i found it very worrying that; dr bass (by his own addmission and embarressment) dated a 113 year old set of bones, as only having died within a one year time-frame.also i found his sense of humour childish, and his blatant vainity anoying. his hypocrisy is puzzling, because although he allows corpses to rott, inside insect-infestations, as he saws and boils away their flesh, he himself has not committed, to leaving his own (over-rated)corpse to his famed-farm. another problem i had with his farm was, he had no security and his farm was next to a prison and prisoners use to wander in to look at the corpses, i wondered if any criminals destroyed evidence, that may have convicted them, or their mates ? dr bass, sings his own praise louder than anyone else seems too, but the book is worth reading, although the gore has been edited out of existence. i didn't like how he felt the need to disprove god, but most selfish people do believe in god, until god does something the believer doesn't like. (dr bass believed in god, until god killed his two wives)
Rating: 
Summary: Plant the Dead and Knowledge Will Bloom
Review: As a teacher of the earth sciences, I am acutely aware of how hard it is to study processes in nature. The life and death of a star or the formation of a mature ocean from a rift valley take too long for a single scientist to watch the entire process. In order to watch the before, during, and after of a large earthquake, a scientist must guess the location of a large quake to get all the equipment in place in order to see the entire process [Parkfield, California finally paid off, but look how long it took!]. Forensic scientists have a different problem - humans have a multitude of issues concerning dead bodies. This is probably part of the reason why the University of Tennessee's Anthropology Research Facility - the infamous "Body Farm" founded by Dr. Bill Bass - remains unique.
In Death's Acre, Dr. Bill Bass and his co-writer Jon Jefferson combine a heavy dose of Body Farm decomposition research with a memoir of Dr. Bass and the ARF, which makes this a book for the non-squeamish. All aspects of the dead and decomposing are handled in a serious and straightforward manner - no tabloid writing here - but once again, first and foremost, this book involves dead bodies. The narrative thread starts in 1957, the year in which Bill Bass starts down the road from anonymous anthropology student to famous forensic scientist, with the emergency archeology done to acquire knowledge of an ancient native American culture from an area about to be drowned by a reservoir. The book continues through his years as an anthropology professor sought out by the police to help with their confusing corpses. Along the way we learn the rationale for a research facility into the decomposition of the human body [including a screw up with a dead Civil War soldier]. Ultimately, we get the history of the Body Farm.
If you are looking for a good science autobiography with a heavy dose of science, this is the book for you. If you are looking for a book solely about the ARF or a book of forensic case histories, you should look for a different book. I think one audience for this book would be MATURE teenagers who are thinking about careers in the forensic sciences [the book IS inspiring and IS NOT lurid]. I have always wanted to be cremated [cemeteries have never made sense to me], but now I think I'll donate my body to the ARF in the name of science.
Rating:
Summary: "Gross" Anatomy that Puts Killers Behind Bars. A page-turner
Review: As someone who has had a lifelong fascination with death, decomposition, murder, funerary and burial practices, and all manner of morbid stuff, I was eager to read "Death's Acre." I had read a little about the Body Farm previously, so I couldn't wait to get the whole story from the man who started it all, Bill Bass.
I expected the book to focus very narrowly on the Body Farm itself, but that isn't the case. The reader does get information about Bass's background and how he got into anthropology -- and then forensics -- in the first place. This moves into logical background about Bass's initial work with corpses and the eventual founding of the Body Farm. I thought it was interesting that the Farm got started not only as a much-needed research facility for learning about an uncharted area of science, but it also seemed to have been started because Bass was running out of place to store messy dead bodies (a broom closet at the university and even the trunk of his beloved Mustang proved to be not the best places after all!).
The book then gets into some of the difficulties the Farm has had -- protests about its location, protests about the use of unclaimed cadavers (particularly those of U.S. veterans) and some of the projects it has hosted (including an adipocere formation experiment and an experiment suggested by crime author Patricia Cornwell).
But most of what comprises this book are stories about Bass's career -- his failures and successes. The failures (most notably the Shy case) point up the need for a facility like the Body Farm, and the successes point to the value of the data gathered at the site. All the workers at the Body Farm -- living and dead -- are doing a great deal to aid forensic science. In the future, justice for murder victims will be served more swiftly and accurately because of the work done at the Body Farm.
Avid readers of true crime will enjoy the specialized "professional" view of cases that may already be familiar to them. I was familiar with the Madison Rutherford and Perry/Rubinstein cases, but getting the technical details from Bass (shaped for maximum readability by his capable co-author Jon Jefferson) gave the stories a new dimension. Especially fascinating was the description of the study Bass's student made of the effects of differents types of saws upon bone, which helped lead to a conviction in the death of Leslie Mahaffey, one of the victims of the diabolical Paul Bernardo, the male half of the Canadian "Barbie and Ken" husband-and-wife murder team. There's also an inside look at the infamous Tri-State Crematory case from 2002.
There's a lot of eye-popping detail in this book, some of it horrifying, some of it poignant, some of it -- dare I say -- hilarious. See if you can keep yourself from laughing when you find out why Bass had to buy his first wife two new kitchen stoves, or why he had to buy his third wife a new blender.
Even when the tone of the book becomes humorous, Bass is always professional and respectful. Bass sees himself as a scientist, first and foremost, and his ultimate goal is to use his science to bring criminals to justice. He's humble, big-hearted, and always willing to learn from anybody -- be it a colleague, one of his own students, or the voiceless dead who speak to him with their inert, shattered bones.
Rating:
Summary: very interesting and informative
Review: Being as the Body Farm is almost in my backyard, and I've heard so much about it, I had to read this book. I was afraid that it might be too graphic, but it wasn't. It was so interesting that I read it cover to cover in less then a week. Mr. Bass writes his stories in such a way that you are totally memorized. I simply never knew all that could be done to a body, regardless of it's stage of decomposition, to find information out about it. My hat off to Mr. Bass and all his years of dedication.
Rating:
Summary: High expectations dashed
Review: Bill Bass, creator of the real-life Body Farm, is arguably the greatest forensic anthropologist today. But this book disappoints. For less purple prose and more science, try CORPSE, by Jessica Snyder Sachs.
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Summary: If you like murder mysteries, this is a must read!
Review: Death's Acre is an engaging read. It is so beautifully crafted that the loving, kind, and humerous nature of Dr. Bill Bass shines through the myriad of anthropological detail. The cases Dr. Bass has been involved in, many of which you will have read about or heard in the news, will keep you as spell-bound as any Grisham or Cornwell novel, and they have the added advantage of being true. Dr. Bill Bass is the founder of the real Body Farm, an adjunct of the University of Tennessee, where in-depth studies are conducted on what happens to the the human body after death. Jon Jefferson has done a superb job. I was half expecting to be grossed out by the subject matter but instead I found myself engrossed with the life and thoughts of the gifted Dr. Bass and the writing of the equally gifted Jefferson. If you're in the least bit jaded with fictional murder stories or want to know more of what goes on behind the scenes of murder case, this book will intrigue you.
Rating:
Summary: Great book! Written for a wide audience. Easy read.
Review: Dr. Bass has created a very interesting and directly written book in Death's Acre. Written in an unconventional format this book tells the history of the Body Farm, contemporary forensic anthropology, and Dr. Bass himself. Interspersed in the historical chronologies are specific forensic cases relating to the events (conception of the Body Farm, etc.) or research they spawned (larval life cycles, etc.). The cases themselves are very compelling stories, but the wonder is that they all relate to events of modern forensic innovation and discovery. Dr. Bass was not the first Forensic Anthropologist, but between his research and his patronage, he has been a leading passenger and teacher in the modern age of discovery.
Rating:
Summary: Great book! Written for a wide audience. Easy read.
Review: Dr. Bass has created a very interesting and directly written book in Death's Acre. Written in an unconventional format this book tells the history of the Body Farm, contemporary forensic anthropology, and Dr. Bass himself. Interspersed in the historical chronologies are specific forensic cases relating to the events (conception of the Body Farm, etc.) or research they spawned (larval life cycles, etc.). The cases themselves are very compelling stories, but the wonder is that they all relate to events of modern forensic innovation and discovery. Dr. Bass was not the first Forensic Anthropologist, but between his research and his patronage, he has been a leading passenger and teacher in the modern age of discovery.
Rating:
Summary: The BEST book I've read in a long time!
Review: Excellent read - HIGHLY RECOMMEND!
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