By Dr. Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson (William Morrow, $25.95)

Fans of murder investigation TV shows will want to begin the new year with this string of postmortem plots.

In Beyond the Body Farm, forensic expert Dr. Bill Bass and writer Jon Jefferson record how Bass pieced together murders and solved mysterious deaths using high-tech probing tools, such as DNA testing and good old-fashioned detective work.

Though the stories brim with anthropological, medical, and scientific jargon, the book reads like anything but a dry coroner's report. The details get gritty and graphic, but you have to expect that when reading about dead bodies. It would have been nice to see pictures of evidence, findings, and relics, which seemed so interesting when unearthed and described by the authors. Still, this book made me want to get out my own magnifying glass to search for unfound clues.--Allison Barnes