All that remains A renowned forensic scientist on death, mortality, and solving crimes

Death is the elusive, black-gowned specter who inevitably darkens the doorstep, whether she is expected or not. Black, a renowned forensic anthropologist from the UK, explores every scientific inch of death and its influence over humanity in this exquisitely worded career memoir. Her fascination with this morbid topic is introduced in early chapters detailing the deaths of those closest to her. Each familial death inspires such loving descriptions of each person, the reader acutely feels the loss, especially as Black gives equal weight to the cause of his or her demise. Black also pays much-deserved tribute to the cadavers donated for medical studies, explaining how crucial they were to her education. She also broadens the scope of death, as investigated during her career, to include monstrous war crimes in Kosovo in the late 1990s and the devastating 2005 tsunami in Indonesia and beyond. The effort to identify the dead and establish the causes of their death is a stalwart passion for the author, who makes it clear why this is so important. Black's testimony to the nobility of her calling is a welcome and compassionate look at death and the mysteries that shroud it.--Michael Ruzicka Copyright 2010 Booklist

Writing with disarming frankness, forensic anthropologist Black, the director of the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at the University of Dundee, takes a multipronged approach to the topic of death, exploring it through scientific, sociological, historical, and philosophical lenses. Black's tone alternates between clinical and deeply introspective, with unflinching descriptions of causality and the physiological processes of dying. With vivid detail, she recounts her earliest experiences in anatomy courses, including her first human dissection-a cadaver, whom she fondly named Henry (after the 19th-century anatomist Henry Gray). Black reflects on her far-ranging career in forensics, whether at the front lines of criminal investigations, cold cases, or applying her knowledge to archeological endeavors. Regardless of one's familiarity with death, no person is immune to the sting of loss, Black suggests, as she poignantly reflects on watching her own loved ones die. Parting missives are wise and assuring, but never coddling: "Skeletons are more than dusty, dry old relics: they are the footnote to a life lived, sometimes retaining sufficient resonance to ensnare the imagination of the living." This is a perceptive study of a subject both deeply uncomfortable and uncommonly engrossing. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.