This fourth book in the Body Farm series penned by the writing duo Jefferson Bass begins when Dr. Bill Brockton receives a phone call from Lt. Dewar of the Oak Ridge Police Department: a corpse has been found in a filthy hotel swimming pool, frozen in the ice.

While performing the forensic exam, medical examiner Dr. Edelberto Garcia and Miranda Lovelady, Brockton’s grad student assistant, are exposed to gamma radiation when a tiny metal pellet of iridium-192 is discovered within the recovered and thawed body. The body turns out to be that of Leonard Novak, physicist and plutonium reactor designer, who was connected with the WWII Manhattan Project back when the town of Oak Ridge was known as Atomic City.

Brockton, still grieving from the death of ladyfriend and former Knoxville medical examiner, Jess Carter, finds himself attracted to the Oak Ridge part-time librarian, Isabella Morgan, who’s very knowledgeable and helpful as Brockton researches the past surrounding the Manhattan Project and Novak’s role in it. Brockton suspects that Novak’s ex-wife, Beatrice, elderly now but a real looker in the mid-1940’s, knows more than she’s telling.

In Bones of Betrayal Miranda’s character is developed more and we get to know her better. She (almost) tests the waters with her own potential love interest, FBI Special Agent Charles "Chip" Thornton. The plot moves along and provides quite a bit of history surrounding the development of the atomic bomb as well. Much research undoubtedly went into this book, which results in a well-drawn, authentic setting we easily inhabit.

Bones of Betrayal surpasses The Devil’s Bones, the previous Jefferson Bass collaboration, (also reviewed on Myshelf.com) and will keep the reader turning pages.

Reviews of other titles in this series

Carved in Bone #1 [review 1] [review 2]
Flesh and Bone #2
The Devil's Bones #3
Bones of Betrayal #4
The Bone Thief # 5 [review 1] [review 2]
The Bone Yard #6 [review 1] [review 2]
The Breaking Point #9
Without Mercy #12