Working Stiff by Judy Melinek, MD 

 Judy Melinek presents an engrossing look at her training in to be a medical examiner in the New York City Office of the Medical Examiner. She carefully explains procedures and duties performed by those involved with death investigation. This includes autopsies, investigating death scenes and counseling those grieving relatives seeking answers (even when the answers aren’t what they want to hear). Her work on identifying remains after the bombing of the World Trade Center is compassionate, mind-boggling (3 blocks of refrigerator tractor-trailers to hold remains), and a reminder. And her work continued on routine autopsies because people continued to die in New York from other causes. This is an absorbing account of the work of forensic pathologists.