This book is a nice cross between medical and true crime. Richard Shepherd has performed over 23,000 autopsies – that’s about an average of 3 each working day in his 30 year career as a forensic pathologist and in this book he tells the story of his career through some of the significant cases he worked on – and his first was the Hungerford killing spree in the U.K in 1987 where 16 people were massacred.
The stories of some of the cases are fascinating, and include some of the court proceedings and what happened to perpetrators after committal and even after release. You learn a lot in this book about the practice of forensic pathology, and it’s very interesting – he explains the processes that occur in the body after death in a simple but informative way. You also learn about changing attitudes and approaches to difficult areas like Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and “shaken baby syndrome”. A fascinating look into a morbid subject.
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