Thursday, March 22, 2007

What I'm reading:
"Never Suck a Dead Man's Hand"
by Dana Kollmann

(Just so you know, I thought "Born on a Blue Day" was terrific all the way through, so it's definitely on the recommend list.)

I'm a sucker (ahem) for memoirs of weird jobs and subjects, if they're well-told. I thought Mary Roach's "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" was fascinating and hilarious. Here's another in the same vein, subtitled "Curious Adventures of a CSI" – or crime scene investigator, for those of you who don't watch TV.

She admits one of her goals is to counteract the Hollywood image of crime scene investigation with the real-life truth of maggots, stenches, bad hours and worse weather. But she did the job for 10 years, so clearly there's stuff that's interesting about it, too.

This is evident in the opening story, in which she explains the title. She does go on a little longer than necessary to convey the physical misery of that particular case, but maybe she'll be more succinct as the book proceeds. And I'm hoping she doesn't try to gross me out too much.

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