This book was so compelling I just wanted to lose myself in it and just skip the jigsaw puzzle or whatever in front of me  (like crocheting while listening to the radio – not a biggie).

What the Dead Know:
Learning About Life as a New York City
Death Investigator 
by Barbara Butcher; 2023 (288 p)
Read by author- 9h 47m = 
Rating: 9.5: true crime – memoir 

I found it available at the library, it looked promising, and the narrator wasn’t too bad; so I grabbed it. A True Crime memoir?  Okay.

I had some doubts until in Chapter 3, my enjoyment picked up dramatically due to the humor.  And the pace and tension stayed right up there. This is NOT a mystery.  It’s the story of a woman’s life from being a drunk to AA to finding herself employed in the medical examiner’s office in New York City.  Person-ally, I’m usually allergic to detailed descriptions of body parts and this woman was a medical examiner so that usually comes with the job. 

Also, I’m not a big fan of authors reading their own books, but with this one, except for the sample, I didn’t even take much note except that she was obviously not a professional reader/actor. Then, at about  20%, I realized she was the perfect narrator for her memoir; her voice made it even more real.

Barbara Butcher was in her early 30s when she sobered up and went through rehab including some employment counseling. She was fairly well educated so she landed a job in the New York City Medical Examiner’s office and loved it from day 1. She wanted to succeed and worked hard and over the next twenty-two years learned how to do every part of the job.  

And it’s fascinating – forensics has always interested me because of the tie-in to the whole legal system from cop-shop and 1st responders to death row and examining the trajectory of blood splatters, the DNA of hair samples, and the arrangement of body parts. It’s often very much like a puzzle to be solved.  And Butcher deals with everything from natural deaths due to old age or heart attack to vicious double serial killers and what all they do.

It’s intense from page 1 on.