A brilliant insider’s view of a critical yet vulnerable government agency.
A gripping account of Maryland’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Having spent 10 years as public information officer and executive assistant to the chief medical examiner at the OCME based in Baltimore, former paramedic Goldfarb, author of 18 Tiny Deaths, writes an expert combination of journalism, science, and personal experience. Modern medical examiners specialize in pathology and often hyperspecialize in forensic pathology. Not beholden to the criminal justice system, their sole responsibility is to the deceased. “The relationship between the medical examiner and the deceased is as sacred as any doctor-patient relationship, with the same ethical and legal obligations,” writes the author. Activists regularly accuse police of persuading examiners to fudge their reports (“do us a favor and overlook that broken neck”), but that would be a career-ending move. Forensic autopsies to determine the cause and manner of an unexpected death take place at 74 centers in the U.S., and only 55 are fully accredited. Everywhere else, examinations of varying quality are overseen by a coroner or an appointed or elected official who may not be a doctor. After a compelling history of Baltimore’s elite system, Goldfarb describes its operations, the many disturbing and often gruesome incidents that produce subjects for a forensic autopsy, and the problems of dealing with hostile activists and often uncomprehending media. In the epilogue, the author reveals that the nation’s forensic medical services are on life support. A combination of the massive increase in opioid deaths and stagnant budgets is overwhelming these chronically understaffed agencies. In Baltimore, bodies awaiting autopsy have been piling up in refrigerated trailers, delaying funerals, religious ceremonies, and court cases. With the media and citizenry expressing outrage, morale has plummeted, and many experienced yet overworked staff members have resigned. In 2022, the state appealed to FEMA, which sent pathologists and technicians to temporarily relieve the backlog. Like its sister agencies around the U.S., a shrunken Baltimore OCME continues to do its best.
A brilliant insider’s view of a critical yet vulnerable government agency.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9781586423582
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Steerforth
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
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