For those drawn to the dark side of human experience (and equipped with strong stomachs), morbidly fascinating stuff and an...
After a grisly crime scene has been investigated by a small army of detectives, coroners and CSIs, who cleans up the mess?
Journalist Reavill (Smut, 2005, etc.) answers that intriguing, if rather disturbing, question. He spent a number of months with the crew of Aftermath, a “bioremediation” service established in a moment of entrepreneurial inspiration by friends Tim Reifsteck and Chris Wilson, who happened upon a gruesome murder scene and asked themselves that very question. The answer, at that point, was: sometimes concerned church groups, but usually the bereaved family members of the deceased. Reifsteck and Wilson saw an opportunity to create a market while helping people, and Aftermath was born. Reavill actually worked alongside Aftermath teams cleaning up after murders, suicides and “unattended deaths”—isolated elderly people who often go days or weeks before their corpses are discovered. The technical aspects of Aftermath’s work—how do you get blood out of subflooring? What becomes of the “biomatter” (a hauntingly clinical term) that remains after the body has been removed? What are the hazards of working with human tissues and fluids that have been violently splattered over walls, rugs, furniture?—are simultaneously fascinating, disgusting and subtly disturbing, as living people with all of their eccentricities and passions and regrets are reduced to a thorny waste-removal problem. Reavill’s metaphysical musings on this last point seem rather pro forma, but he presents the hard-to-take information skillfully and with grace, and he offers a sober appraisal of the nature of violent crime. Tangents on Chicago’s unbelievably violent history, the legacy of serial killers in the popular imagination and the history of forensic science provide compelling and welcome digressions from the overwhelmingly grim business of Aftermath.
For those drawn to the dark side of human experience (and equipped with strong stomachs), morbidly fascinating stuff and an essential addition to any True Crime reader’s library.Pub Date: May 17, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-592-40296-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Gotham Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2007
A book that describes what kangaroos do and offers unusually beautiful pictures of them doing it. One old male bending forward while scratching his back looks like nothing else found in nature- -except maybe a curmudgeonly old baseball manager with arthritis in the late innings of another losing game (in fact, baseball players would appear to be the only animals who scratch themselves as much as kangaroos do—bellies, underarms, Iwago captures every permutation of scratching). At other times, they look preternaturally graceful and serene. Some of Iwago's (Mitsuaki Iwago's Whales, not reviewed) photographic compositions flirt with anthropomorphism and slyly play to our urge to see ourselves in the animals. But kangaroos are so singular that there's always something about the cant of a head or the drape of a limb that makes you think you flatter yourself that there is any kinship. They remain wondrously different.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-8118-0785-1
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
An intriguing collection of essays covering much familiar ground, but with enough new insights and fresh perspectives to interest both Civil War buffs and casual readers. Boritt (Civil War Studies/Gettysburg College; Why the Confederacy Lost, 1992) assembles five essays by top specialists in the field, exploring the relationship of wartime Commander-in-Chief Lincoln to his leaders on the battlefield. The common denominator in those relations, the volume argues, was conflict, in part because of the inherent tension between civil and military authorities but also due to the personalities of Lincoln and those he chose to command. Stephen Sears (George B. McClellan, 1988) again examines ``little Mac,'' a supremely cautious man who never thought he had enough men or matÇriel to fight the Confederates; Lincoln removed him from command after he failed to exploit the narrow Union victory at Antietam. Mark Neely (The Last Best Hope of Earth, 1993) assays ``Fighting Joe'' Hooker, who led Union forces into a blundering defeat on bad terrain at Chancellorsville. Boritt looks at George Meade and the Battle of Gettysburg; like McClellan, Meade was cautious and slow, a trait that infuriated Lincoln and led him briefly to consider leaving Washington to take command of the Army himself. Michael Fellman (History/Simon Fraser Univ., British Columbia) writes about William Tecumseh Sherman, with whom Lincoln had distant and infrequent contact. Lincoln counseled Sherman to show mercy to Southerners—advice the general ignored, but his March to the Sea helped clinch Lincoln's re-election, which for a time seemed doubtful. Finally, John Y. Simon (History/Univ. of Southern Illinois) discusses Ulysses S. Grant, the general with whom it is often assumed Lincoln had the best relationship: The volume makes it clear that was true only in comparison with the president's other fractured ties. Five thoughtful and well-written essays, further grist for the mill of seemingly endless fascination with America's costliest war.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-19-508505-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
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