(Starnewsonline, Ben Steelman, Jan. 22)

As mystery aficionados and regulars at the Cape Fear Crime Festival know, “Jefferson Bass” is a pseudonym for two people.

One is Bill Bass, the legendary forensic anthropologist and creator of the outdoor lab known as “The Body Farm,” made famous by Patricia Cornwell.

The other is Jon Jefferson, a freelance writer for The New York Times and other publications, who collaborated with Bass on his memoirs “Death’s Acre” and “Beyond the Body Farm.” (Jefferson attended the 2007 Crime Festival here in Wilmington.)

The two, as Jefferson Bass, have continued their partnership through a series of “Body Farm” mystery novels, beginning with “Carved in Bone” in 2006.

Their sleuth is Bill Brockton, an anthropology professor at the Univeristy of Tennessee (as Bass was) and head of its Anthropology Research Facility (the Body Farm’s official name). Think Gil Grissom with a Southern accent. (more…)