What the Dead Know Learning about Life as a New York City Death Investigator

A riveting, deeply personal memoir of more than twenty years of death-scene investigations by New York City death investigator Barbara Butcher.

Barbara Butcher was recovering from addiction problems and unhappy relationships when she landed a job at the Medical Examiner’s Office in New York City. The second woman ever hired for the role of Death Investigator in Manhattan, she was the first to last more than three months. The work was gritty and demanding, sometimes dangerous. And she loved it.

In a voice full of attitude—a real New Yorker some might say—Barbara writes about what it was like not to go a day on the job without seeing a victim of homicide or some other violent crime. She investigated double homicides, gruesome suicides, and most heartbreaking of all, underage rape victims who had also been murdered. Butcher describes working at the world’s largest morgue following 9/11, where she and her colleagues initially relied on family members’ descriptions to help distinguish among the 21,900 body parts of the victims.

Butcher spent ten years in the field during which time she examined more than 5,500 death scenes, 680 of which were homicides. Perfect for fans of Kathy Reichs and Patricia Cornwell, as well as fans of the CSI shows, What the Dead Know tells the stunning real life-story of a career dedicated to investigating death, and how it brought the author to life.