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    Dead Center: Behind the Scenes at the World's Largest Medical Examiner's Office
    Unavailable
    Dead Center: Behind the Scenes at the World's Largest Medical Examiner's Office
    Unavailable
    Dead Center: Behind the Scenes at the World's Largest Medical Examiner's Office
    Ebook346 pages5 hours

    Dead Center: Behind the Scenes at the World's Largest Medical Examiner's Office

    By Shiya Ribowsky and Tom Shachtman

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A city with eight million people has eight million ways to die

    For fifteen years, Shiya Ribowsky worked as a medicolegal investigator in New York City’s medical examiner’s office—the largest, most sophisticated organization of its kind in the world. Utilizing his background in medicine, he led the investigations of more than eight thousand individual deaths, becoming a key figure in some of New York’s most bizarre death cases and eventually taking charge of the largest forensic investigation ever attempted: identifying the dead in the aftermath of the September 11 tragedies.

    Now, in this mesmerizing book, Ribowsky pulls back the curtain on the New York City’s medical examiner’s office, giving an enthralling, never-before-seen glimpse into death and the city. Born and raised in New York City’s orthodox Jewish community, Ribowsky seems an unlikely candidate for this macabre profession. Nevertheless he has forsaken a promising career of medical work with the living, descending instead into the realm of the dead, enticed by the challenge of confronting death on a daily basis. Taking you through the vermin-infested Bowery flophouses and posh Upper East Side apartments of the city’s dead, Ribowsky explores in gruesome detail the skeletons that hang in the Big Apple’s closets. Combing through the autopsy room, he also exposes the grim secrets that only a scalpel and a dead body can tell and explains how forensic investigation does not merely solve crimes—it saves lives.

    But it is in the aftermath of September 11 that the ME’s office is handed its biggest challenge: to identify as many of the fallen as possible. With poignant descriptions, Ribowsky provides a dramatic account of the office’s diligent and unflappable work with the families of the victims, helping them emerge from the ashes of this tragedy while displaying the strength, grit, intelligence, and compassion that Americans expect from true New Yorkers.

    At once compelling and heartbreaking, Dead Center is a story of New York unlike any other, blending the haunting with the sublime, while painting a striking portrait of death (and life) in the city that never sleeps.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061741975
    Unavailable
    Dead Center: Behind the Scenes at the World's Largest Medical Examiner's Office
    Author

    Shiya Ribowsky

    Shiya Ribowsky is the former director of special projects at the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office. He is one of America’s most experienced medicolegal investigators. Also the forensics consultant to Law & Order, he lives in Long Island, New York.

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    Reviews for Dead Center

    4/5

    49 ratings4 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Less about a Medical Examiner’s office than it was a personal memoir of the author’s career, including the World Trade Centre attacks. Comprising mainly personal anecdotes for the first half, with his personal experiences of the WTC aftermath for the second, which bore little resemblance to the usual workings of an ME office. Interesting, but not really what it says on the tin.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This book was not what I expected, but was still an interesting read. The first half of the book was mostly about the beginning of the author's career, and the second half was mostly about the incredible task of processing and identifying the massive amount of remains of the victims of the World Trade Center attacks of 9-11. There were some descriptions of deaths the author investigated early in his career as well, some of which were a little too descriptive for some readers.The book contained alot of the names of those who worked along-side the author, along with kudos for jobs well done, and subtle digs for those who the author felt did not do a good job....which made the book seem more like a speech some of the time. I found the book interesting overall, especially regarding the enormous, laborious and tedious job of sifting through tens of thousands of bits & pieces of human remains ~ this book brought back the horror and the reality of what happened on 9-11, and for that alone, I found the book a worthwhile read. May we never forget.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      An outstanding first person account of the huge task of identifying the world trade center victims.
    • 3/5
      How were the bodies of the World Trade Center victims identified?