Working Stiff

Judy Melinek and TJ Mitchell

Allen & Unwin

Otago Daily Times, January 17th 2015

Working Stiff is both a work of memoir and an accessible introduction to the basic principles of forensic science.  Writing in collaboration with her husband TJ, Mitchell, Dr Judy Melinek draws on her experiences in the New York Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to give an insight into the every-day life of a forensic pathologist and to describe the methods by which she and other members of the forensic and legal investigation team determine cause (the what) and means (the how) of death.

Contrary to portrayals in popular media, natural and accidental deaths predominate over homicides (her prescription for a long life; take care in and around cars, lose weigh, exercise, avoid guns, drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, and the edge of subway platforms), and her role extends well beyond the autopsy room, ranging from crime-scene investigation to grief counselling.

And then are massive casualty events like 9/11 (and, a month later, the Flight 587 crash), when the focus of their work shifts from causal determination to victim identification. The Two Towers were hit 9 weeks into Melinek’s residency, and her description of the massive effort required to separate and catalogue the thousands of individual body parts and fragments (nearly 20,000 in all) truly brought home the enormity of the event for the US in general and New York in particular.

Although the cases Melinek describes are both detailed and at times disturbing, they are exemplary rather than gratuitous, and by placing them in the context of their impact on her own life. She regards her job as ultimately life-affirming, speaking for the dead to bring comfort and closure for those left behind, and by the end of the book I had to agree with her. It is a fascinating story that will appeal to armchair detectives everywhere.  

https://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/books/forensic-pathology-inside