Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner

Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner by Judy Melinek and T. J. Mitchell.read by Tanya Eby. 258 pages.

Melinek trained as a forensic pathologist in New York City, beginning just two months before the September 11 attacks. She started out wanting to be a surgeon, but the endless hours during her medical residency led her to seek another path. Melinek tries to keep her sense of humor throughout the book, and mostly succeeds, thought there are many grim moments that cannot be laughed away.
It's a very interesting and informative book and Tanya Eby does a very good job of reading the audio edition. Many of Melinek's stories are crazy and hilarious, and some (like those dealing with maggots, and putting plastic bags over bodies of a certain age to keep the limbs from falling off) make you realize how many odd and horrible things can happen to you.

Working Stiff

Working stiff: two years, 262 bodies and the making of a medical examiner / Judy Melinek & T. J. Mitchell 258 pgs.

Judy Melinek started her training as a forensic pathologist at the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner in July 2001.  She was steeped in training and dead bodies in September of that year when the events on the 11th took the work out into a tented parking lot filled with refrigerated trucks.  But this book is about so much more than the mass tragedies because tragic things happen every day.  Lots to learn in a big city like New York where people die all kinds of ways.  Dr. Melinek gives PLENTY of examples and a bit of her story along the way.

This book is kind of like a car wreck...you might not like what you see but you can't seem to look away.  I listened to the audio book and my best recommendation is don't listen or read if it is near meal time.

check our catalog

Thirty-three Teeth

Thirty-three Teeth by Colin Cotterill  238 pp.

This is the second book in the "Dr. Siri Investigates" series. By all standards the aged Dr. Siri Paiboun should be retired. Because he is one of the few doctors who have not fled newly communist Laos, he has been given the post of National Coroner. There he deals with the laughable bureaucracy, unusual cases, an ancient spirit that lives in his body, and his ambitious nurse Dtui. In this episode Siri is given the job of determining the nationality of two charred helicopter crash victims connected to the deposed royal family, find the source of the horrific deaths of women mauled by what appears to be a large animal (possibly a missing bear?), and if that wasn't enough, people are hurling themselves off a ministry building. Nurse Dtui plays an important role as co-investigator which ultimately puts her life in jeopardy. The story is intriguing but it's the characters that make this series so enjoyable.

The Coroner's Lunch

The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill  272 pp.

This is the first book in the mystery series starring Dr. Siri Paiboun, the chief medical examiner in Laos following the communist takeover in 1975. Dr. Siri is conscripted into the position at the age of 72 because the "only doctor with a background in performing autopsies had crossed the river" to Thailand. Business is booming with a poisoned official's wife, the bodies of three torture victims, a looming international incident with Vietnam, and the mysterious deaths of officials in charge of  forest clearing project in a northern Hmong region. Things get really serious when there is an attempt on the doctor's life. In spite of it all, Siri handles his job and combats the bumbling bureaucrats with intelligence, sarcasm, wry observations and the assistance of his two helpers, Geung and nurse Dtui. At an age when he thought he would be living quietly on a pension, the doctor is investigating political coverups, dealing with tribal spirits, and finding a bit a romance with the woman who makes his lunch. This was my introduction to the Dr. Siri series but I have enjoyed Cotterill's work through the Jimm Juree mystery series.