Passing one by

kw: opinion, book note

As my most recent "wild card" choice, I picked Blood on the Table by Colin Evans. It is subtitled The Greatest Cases of New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Having read the first chapter and half the second, I've decided not to continue.

The book is clearly superbly written and well done. However, as a person determinedly wrapped up in the dispensing of life, I found its emphasis on murder and suicide just too much. I should have guessed, considering that the title and introduction make clear it is about the "super coroner" position, pioneered by New York City just ninety years ago. Of course, coroners' "great cases" have to do with figuring out the How's and Why's of death.

So I'll pass it by, in favor of a book of war correspondence. The focus in this book, at least, is on the lives of people affected by war, more than upon the deaths of those the survivors are bereaved of. Stay tuned.