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Dr Bill Brockton and his assistant Miranda Lovelady are called out to a murder scene in Oak Ridge, Tennesee. Oak Ridge is famous as the site of the Manhattan Project where uranium for the atomic bomb during World War II. At the crime scene, they find a body frozen in a swimming pool. After the body is sawn out of the ice, it is identified as Dr Leonard Novak. Novak played an integral role in the Manhattan Project so officials cannot help but wonder if his murder is somehow connected to the research done so many years ago. This connection becomes more concrete when Novak's body is found to be radioactive. Novak somehow ingested radioactive materials and now everyone who has spent time with the body must be monitored for radiation poisoning. While Brockton and Miranda both received mild doses, the pathologist does not fair quite as well. Brockton is determined to solve this murder, as he wants to bring to justice the person who risked his life and the lives of his friends. The obvious starting point for this investigation is Novak's past. While authorities have little luck questioning Novak's ex-wife, she seems willing to befriend Brockton. Beatrice worked on the Manhattan Project, met her ex-husband there and learned many of the secrets kept by the community as a whole. Unfortunately her memory is not very good and she seems to move in and out of dementia. Brockton is sure that she holds the answers to this murder and events from the past, if he can only get her to share them. As Brockton pieces together Beatrice's memories and the evidence they find from Novak's life – such as a roll of undeveloped film – he is sure that this modern day murder is related to a disappearance during World War II. He enlists the aid of the Oak Ridge librarian and Miranda to research the town, its history and the impact of radiation on the human body. As Brockton learns more about Novak and the murders, he realizes that Novak's killer is much closer to him and more involved in the official investigation than he would ever have imagined. I enjoy the Body Farm mystery series so I looked forward to the appearance of BONES OF BETRAYAL. Regrettably this book is not up to the standards of the other books in this series. The plotting in BONES OF BETRAYAL is not as tight and relies more on coincidences than on story development. While this book does include details about the research done on the Body Farm 'campus,' I felt I did not learn as much as I did from previous books. Perhaps I'm a bit ghoulish but I find the detail of forensic anthropology in the series fascinating. Therefore I would suggest BONES OF BETRAYAL is best suited to someone new to the series. If those who have read the Body Farm series do not expect this book to meet the standards of previous entries, then they would most likely appreciate this mystery more than I did. Considered on its own, it has much to recommend it. After all not every book in a series can be perfect so some books will be weaker or stronger than others. With luck, the next book out will recapture the best qualities of the series and be well worth waiting for.
Reviewed by Sarah Dudley, April 2009
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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