Part of Body Farm, book 6
First published 2011
Dr. Bill Brockton leaves his Body Farm research facility to help a friend prove a woman's apparent suicide was actually murder. His consulting trip takes an unexpected turn when two teenage skulls surface near the charred remains of the North Florida Boys' Reformatory, a juvenile detention center that burned down over forty years ago. Local residents whisper dark stories about the reformatory: brutal beatings, systematic torture, and unspeakable cruelty. Armed with a diary written by a former student, Brockton and his team uncover a horrifying secret buried in shallow graves around the site. The bones belong to teenage boys who died violent deaths decades ago. As Brockton digs deeper into the reformatory's past, his investigation threatens powerful people who have spent years hiding their connection to the facility. The closer he gets to the truth about what happened to these boys, the more dangerous his situation becomes. Some secrets have been buried so long that exposing them could destroy lives in the present.
Genres: historical-fiction, mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: dark, emotional, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: investigation, secrets, uncovering-the-past
Setting: North Florida Boys' Reformatory
Period: 1970s
315 pages · Hardcover · William Morrow
Content warnings: abuse, child-abuse, death, violence