Teasing Secrets from the Dead

Emily Craig takes us on a journey through her illustrious career, working through the different cases she was assigned.
Through forensic investigations and the different techniques that were used to create life-like images of those who could not be identified.

I really enjoyed this book, and the many different areas that she touched on. There were some harder cases to read through, and some areas, such as the attacks of 9/11. The subsequent work to identify all of the victims who died in the attacks, were extremely hard to read through, but the human touch, and the many emotions of those who work on these cases all come through in the pages of this book.

Highly recommend this book!

A great memoir from a medical illustrator turned forensic anthropologist, including her work on some of the most notable and devastating mass fatalities the US has seen in the 90s and early 2000s.

Craig describes her path, and her craft in detail, without sugarcoating the grosser parts of death that she deals with daily.

Some have noted that at times, she can sound mildly self-aggrandizing, but she shall be forgiven, for being a pioneer, in general, and a woman in a male dominated field, requires an exceptional amount of determination and confidence. Besides, it is what competence looks like, both the confidence about the tools of the trade, and the all-consuming struggle against failure and letting everybody else and herself down that she so often describes.

Ultimately Craig reveals little groundbreaking new, but her insightful, empathetic, and sincere account is hard to put down.