Stories We Recommend
What the Dead Know: Learning About Life as a New York City Death Investigator
By Barbara Butcher
Now featured in the five-part docuseries on Netflix, Homicide: New York
A “remarkably candid and sensitive” (The Wall Street Journal) memoir of more than twenty years of death-scene investigations by New York City death investigator Barbara Butcher.
Barbara Butcher was early in her recovery from alcoholism when she found an unexpected lifeline: a job at the Medical Examiner’s Office in New York City. The second woman ever hired for the role of Death Investigator in Manhattan, she was the first to last more than three months. The work was gritty, demanding, morbid, and sometimes dangerous—and she loved it.
Butcher (yes, that’s her real name, and she has heard all the jokes) spent day in and day out investigating double homicides, gruesome suicides, and most heartbreaking of all, underage rape victims who had also been murdered. In What the Dead Know, she writes with the kind of New York attitude and bravado you might expect from decades in the field, investigating more than 5,500 death scenes, 680 of which were homicides. In the opening chapter, she describes how just from sheer luck of having her arm in a cast, she avoided a boobytrapped suicide. Later in her career, she describes working the nation’s largest mass murder, the attack on 9/11, where she and her colleagues initially relied on family members’ descriptions to help distinguish among the 21,900 body parts of the victims.
This is the “breathtakingly honest, compassionate, and raw” (Patricia Cornwell), “completely unputdownable” (Adriana Trigiani, New York Times best selling author of The Good Left Undone) real-life story of a woman who, in dealing with death every day, learned surprising lessons about life—and how some of those lessons saved her from becoming a statistic herself. Fans of Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwell, and true crime won’t be able to put this down.
One Cut: The Fight That Cost Six Lives
By Eve Porinchak
Real stories. Real teens. Real crimes.
A backyard brawl turned media circus filled with gang accusations turns a small, quiet town upside down in this second book in the new Simon True series.
On May 22, 1995 at 7 p.m. sixteen-year-old Jimmy Farris and seventeen-year-old Mike McLoren were working out outside Mike’s backyard fort. Four boys hopped the fence, and a fight broke out inside the dark fort made of two-by-four planks and tarps. Within minutes, both Mike and Jimmy had been stabbed. Jimmy died a short time later.
While neighbors knew that the fort was a local hangout where drugs were available, the prosecution depicted the four defendants as gang members, and the crime as gang related. The accusations created a media circus, and added fuel to the growing belief that this affluent, safe, all-white neighborhood was in danger of a full-blown gang war.
Four boys stood trial. All four boys faced life sentences. Why? Because of California’s Felony Murder Rule. The law states that “a death is considered first degree murder when it is commissioned during one of the following felonies: Arson, Rape, Carjacking, Robbery, Burglary, Mayhem, Kidnapping.” In other words, if you—or somebody you are with—intends to commit a felony, and somebody accidentally dies in the process, all parties can be tried and convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life without parole, even if nobody had any intention of committing a murder.
What really happened that day? Was it a case of robbery gone wrong? Gang activity? Or was it something else?
The Book of Murder: A Prosecutor's Journey Through Love and Death
By Matt Murphy
Examining murder from an insider’s perspective, Matt Murphy—a former senior deputy district attorney and current ABC News Legal Analyst—discusses cases from his career, how they strained his personal life, and how he found peace seeking justice for victims and their families.
Part taxonomy of murder, part prosecutor’s handbook, and part personal memoir, The Book of Murder goes through a dozen cases and his recollections of his twenty-six years in the Orange County DA’s office (seventeen in the Homicide Unit). Refreshingly honest about the toll such work takes on one’s private life, Murphy weaves his personal narrative throughout his casework in a way that humanizes the people entrusted with the duty of seeking justice on behalf of the public. As he does so, he lays bare the decision-making a prosecutor goes through in building a case to ensure justice is met while telling captivating tale after captivating tale of the world’s worst crime.
See how a prosecutor looks at—and lives with—the very worst crime. The insider’s perspective that Murphy gives on the notorious cases of Skylar Deleon, Rodney Alcala, “Dirty John” Meehan, and many others is a vital read for true-crime fans everywhere.
Never Suck A Dead Man's Hand: Curious Adventures of a CSI
By Dana Kollman
“Informative, witty . . . Kollmann delivers terse commentary and gory detail while puncturing common misconceptions about forensics.”
—Booklist
Step past the flashing lights into the true scene of the crime with this frank, unflinching, and unforgettable account of life as a crime scene investigator. Whether explaining rigor mortis or the art of fingerprinting a stiff corpse on the side of the road, Dana Kollmann details her true, unvarnished experiences as a CSI for the Baltimore County Police Department.
“Riveting.”
—M. William Phelps, New York Times best selling author of We Thought We Knew You
Unlike the popular crime dramas proliferating on today’s television networks, these forensic tales forgo glitz for grit to show what really goes on. Kollmann recounts stories that the cops and the CSI’s usually leave in the field, bringing the sights, smells, and sounds of a crime scene alive as never before.
“Raw and real.”
—Connie Fletcher, author of Every Contact Leaves a Trace
Unveiling the process and science of crime scene investigation in all its can’t-tear-your-eyes-away fascination, Never Suck a Dead Man’s Hand takes you into the strange world behind the yellow tape, offering a truly eye-opening perspective on the day-to-day life of a CSI.
“Gritty, witty, and heartfelt . . . a must-read.”
—Aphrodite Jones, New York Times best selling author of A Perfect Husband
Death's Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales
By William M. Bass
“Fans of the forensics-oriented novels of such mystery writers as Kathy Reichs and Patricia Cornwell...not to mention television series like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, will make an eager audience for this one.”
—Booklist
On a patch of land in the Tennessee hills, human corpses decompose in the open air, aided by insects, bacteria, and birds, unhindered by coffins or mausoleums. This is Bill Bass’s “Body Farm,” where nature takes its course as bodies buried in shallow graves, submerged in water, or locked in car trunks serve the needs of science and the cause of justice.
In Death’s Acre, Bass invites readers on an unprecedented journey behind the gates of the Body Farm where he revolutionized forensic anthropology. A master scientist and an engaging storyteller, Bass reveals his most intriguing cases for the first time. He revisits the Lindbergh kidnapping and murder, explores the mystery of a headless corpse whose identity astonished police, divulges how the telltale traces of an insect sent a murderous grandfather to death row—and much more.
A Life Impossible: Living with ALS: Finding Peace and Wisdom Within a Fragile Existence
By Steve Gleason and Jeff Duncan
From NFL player Steve Gleason, a powerful, inspiring memoir of love, heartbreak, resilience, family, and remarkable triumph in the face of ALS
"Gleason is a symbol of resilience, hope and optimism.”
—The New York Times
"Steve Gleason has changed the world."
—Roger Goodell, NFL Commissioner
"An extraordinary book...A Life Impossible will change the way people cope, think, and live."
—Mike Lupica, co-author with James Patterson of 12 Months to Live
In 2011, three years after leaving the NFL, Steve Gleason was diagnosed with ALS, a terminal disease that takes away the ability to move, talk, and breathe. Doctors gave him three years to live. He was thirty-three years old. As Steve says, he is now ten years past his expiration date.
His memoir is the chronicle of a remarkable life, one filled with optimism and joy, despite the trauma and pain and despair he has experienced. Writing using eye-tracking technology, Gleason covers his pre-ALS life through the highs and lows of his NFL career with the New Orleans Saints, where he made one of the most memorable plays in Saints history, leading to a victory in the first post-Katrina home game, uplifting the city, making him a hero, and reflected in a nine-foot bronze statue outside the Superdome. Then came his heartbreaking diagnosis. Gleason lost all muscle function, he now uses Stephen Hawking-like technology to communicate, and breathes with the help of a ventilator. This book captures Gleason and his wife Michel’s unmatched resilience as they reinvent their lives, refuse to succumb to despair, and face his disease realistically and existentially.
This unsparing portrait argues that a person's true strength does not reside solely in one’s body but also in the ability to face unfathomable adversity and still be able to love and treasure life.