Writing in collaboration with her husband T.J., Dr Judy Melinek draws on her experiences in the New York office of the chief medical examiner to give an insight into the everyday life of a forensic pathologist and to describe the methods by which she and other members of the forensic and legal investigation team determine cause (the what) and means (the how) of death.
Contrary to portrayals in popular media, natural and accidental deaths predominate over homicides (her prescription for a long life: take care in and around cars, lose weight, exercise, avoid guns, drugs, cigarettes, alcohol and the edge of subway platforms), and her role extends well beyond the autopsy room, ranging from crime-scene investigation to grief counselling.
And then are massive casualty events such as 9/11 (and, a month later, the Flight 587 crash), when the focus of their work shifts from causal determination to victim identification.
The Two Towers were hit nine weeks into Melinek's residency, and her description of the massive effort required to separate and catalogue the thousands of individual body parts and fragments (nearly 20,000 in all) truly brought home the enormity of the event for the US in general and New York in particular.
Although the cases Melinek describes are detailed and at times disturbing, they are exemplary rather than gratuitous, by placing them in the context of their impact on her own life. She regards her job as ultimately life-affirming, speaking for the dead to bring comfort and closure for those left behind, and by the end of the book I had to agree with her.
- Cushla McKinney is a Dunedin scientist.
WIN A COPY
The ODT has five copies of Working Stiff, by Dr Judy Melinek and T. J. Mitchell, to give away courtesy of Allen & Unwin. For your chance to win, email helen.speirs@odt.co.nz with your name and postal address in the body of the email and ''Working Stiff competition'' in the subject line by 5pm on Tuesday, January 20.
''RECOMMENDED READS'' WINNERS
Winners of our three ''2014's recommended reads'' giveaways were: Anne Liardet, of Kakanui, Jane Fraser, of Wanaka, and Lorraine and John Savory, of Dunedin.
SUMMER TIMES WINNERS
Winners of our six ''Summer Times Box of Books'' giveaways were: Nicky McHugh, of Macandrew Bay (Penguin), Caroline Brown, of Outram (Allen & Unwin), Ranjan Connor, of Andersons Bay (Text Publishing), Dorothy Stoddart, of Kew, (Hachette & Scholastic) Claire Radford, of Andersons Bay (Random House) and John Chambers, of Cromwell (HarperCollins).
