Both charming and disturbing, Halber’s accessible, personalized style is engaging despite being somewhat at odds with the...
Account of the eccentric online communities that have transformed the forensic identification of deceased missing persons.
“Chances are good that you or someone you know has at one point stumbled over a dead body,” writes Boston-based science writer Halber in this passionately rendered debut. “America is home to tens of thousands of unidentified human remains.” Using a number of infamous unsolved crimes as a framework—including such regional legends as Kentucky’s “Tent Girl” and Provincetown’s “Lady of the Dunes”—the author argues that, despite our cultural fondness for crime stories and pursuit of perpetrators, it remains shockingly easy for a dead body to remain unidentified and thus disappeared, whether through natural or malicious intervention. Until recently, law enforcement was often ineffective in managing UIDs, given that such cases often crossed state lines as well as the technical complexities of handling decomposed remains. This began to change in 2004, when Justice Department studies found alarming numbers of unidentified remains in many jurisdictions; at the same time, many amateurs had begun to connect, share information and provide tips on cold cases via the Internet. Halber recounts her interviews with several of these cold-case enthusiasts, a diverse group ranging from a Massachusetts police dispatcher to a self-described “Southern version of Kojak” whose identification of Tent Girl after 40 years led to a full-time career. Since then, amateur interest in such unsolved cases has expanded: Halber notes that crowd-sourced discussion boards like Cold Cases and the Doe Network evolved spontaneously, taking advantage of information secreted in the Web’s dark corners, yet often wound up becoming competitive and catty. Although law enforcement used to resist such outsider involvement, many officials now recognize the benefits of the homegrown sleuths’ efforts.
Both charming and disturbing, Halber’s accessible, personalized style is engaging despite being somewhat at odds with the grisly aspects of her topic.Pub Date: July 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4516-5758-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
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 Yorker staff 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
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
