All That Remains: A Life in Death

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Reading this book is like watching your favorite crime series only much more down to earth and more realistic. My favorite chapter was on Kosovo; elsewhere I found the mixture of science and memoir slightly off, and the voice never fully drew me in.

Sue Black has been involved with scenes of mass fatalities, and identifying people along with the causes of their death. The way in which she described this time in her life, had more of an impact on me that I had expected. The best book I've ever read on anatomy and death (and philosophy, in the form of thoughful essays) is by F. In ‘All that Remains’ she reveals the many faces of death she has come to know, using key cases to explore how forensic science has developed, and what her work has taught her. Black, a world-leading forensic anthropologist, was part of the war crimes investigation in Kosovo and the recovery effort in Thailand after the 2004 tsunami.Also just to see how we are all very much the same, as you say 🙂 There is something very comforting about that! But when it comes down to it the book is split into two parts - memoir and philosophy in the first 100 pages, and your standard forensic nonfiction in the rest. I read a lot of crime fiction, I've watched Bones and Silent Witness, I knew this was definitely going to be my cup of tea.

Unless the author is chasing money in which case it will be a Twilight situation with a million teenage vampire romances. As a Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology, she focuses on mortal remains in her lab, at burial sites, at scenes of violence, murder and criminal dismemberment, and when investigating mass fatalities due to war, accident or natural disaster.

One particular story about accidentally getting something in her mouth during an autopsy was enough to make me put the book down for a solid five minutes. K. government on disaster preparedness, and is a co-author of the textbook Developmental Juvenile Osteology (2000). Horrors that would slay my every ability to respond at all, and she breathes deeply and reaches for her gloves. You are left with the feeling throughout this book that few people in the world know more about her subject than Sue Black. Along with the eccentric elderly characters who visit the University of Dundee and want to donate their bodies to science, but who want to see the cadavers first.