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

Ribowsky, Shiya; Shachtman, Tom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061189405 ISBN 13: 9780061189401

Publisher: William Morrow & Company, 2007

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review

"Short of becoming a murder victim, this is the closest you'll get to the sanctum of a big-city morgue."--Rene Balcer, executive producer and creator, Law & Order: Criminal Intent

"Fascinating. A well written insider's account of life and death as seen by one of New York's elite medicolegal investigators."--Warren Leight, Tony Award-winning playwright of Side Man

"A great read. It doesn't get more authentic than this. Ribowsky is the real thing. His insights are fantastic."--Leslie Crocker Snyder, author of 25 to Life

Synopsis

These are stories of crime, investigation, death, and Ground Zero, by the insider who ran the largest forensic investigation ever attempted, the effort to find and identify the victims of the 9/11 attacks. In his fifteen years with the New York City medical examiner's office, Shiya Ribowski has been the primary investigator on more than eight thousand deaths, a harrowing crash course that put him at the scene of the most gruesome and bizarre crimes in the city's history. There was the encounter with mummified human remains, the traveling freak show, bodies dumped under bridges and the crack dens of the nineties and, most challenging of all, the extraordinary task of identifying the bodies of the victims of 9/11, an undertaking that only recently came to a close in April 2005.In "Dead Center", Ribowsky shares his intimate and utterly unique knowledge of death. From the morgue to the examining table to the darkest corners of the forensics industry, Ribowsky reveals the personal ethics and emotional backbone that allow him to do the job.

Weaving together fascinating stories from 9/11 and tales of Ribowsky's career at large, "Dead Center" is a riveting tale of forensic science and murder, and a vicarious thrill ride through New York's criminal underworld.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0061189405
• ISBN 13: 9780061189401
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272