Interesting. This is not what one would usually think of as a beach book but for those of us who like the forensic files or other crime shows on tv, it's catnip. There are lots of inside details of how the coroner's office works- notably with relatives. It's a combination of a biography and vignettes about death investigations. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

This one was a pretty good read. The author seems to have taken on the role as a detective. That's not accurate on the east coast, but may be that way on the west coast. Overall a well written book. (Will review on Amazon when published).

The title of the book really drew me in. I find Forensic Science fascinating. The detective work that goes into it to find out how the person died. The people who work with the dead need to have a special personality. It’s a tough thing to deal with. Having worked in a Level 1 Trauma Center for about 4 years, I have a slight peek into working with families that are dealing with the sudden passing of a loved one.

The book revolved around Marin County Coroner Ken Holmes as he discusses with the author his most fascinating and famous cases. The book is written almost in an interview form where Ken is telling his stories. Each chapter is a new large case with a few smaller ones scattered in. The saddest case for me, as a mother of three, was the small child and mother that was killed by his father and put in the freezer until the father could dispose of the bodies by tossing them in the bay. The crack in the case was the ice crystal formation in the muscle tissue that was seen under the microscope. Ken talks about helping to get the suicide prevention netting in place on the Bay Bridge. The number of suicides off the bridge are staggering and something needed to be done. Ken says he remembers a German tourist who remained unidentified until a PI called him and asked if he had a missing person matching his description. Come to find out the man had told all of his family that he was leaving and going to go and kill himself by jumping off the bridge in San Fransisco. No one really believed him. Ken was just happy that he was able to return a missing person to his family overseas even if it was in the less than happy circumstances. Ken tells the author all about his education and his rise through the ranks to eventually become the head cheese so to speak. It wasn’t until he refused to release an apology for stating the truth in a case, that he had even contemplated retirement. Now he is happily enjoying retirement, driving fast cars and doing the occasional referral.

This book was nothing like I thought. I wasn’t expecting interview form. I thought it would be a lot more informative than it was. It delves more into education and how he advanced his career and did things more than telling the stories of his cases. While each chapter does have cases, that is not the only thing that is talked about. The training he had to take and the way he had to break the news to the family. The blurb when I requested it was that it was reminiscent of the book Working Stiff which I have read and reviewed as well. While I agree that the subject matter is similar, the writing style is totally different. I did like the book. It was good and was definitely educational. It just wasn’t exactly what I was expecting.

This book follows the nearly forty year career of Ken Holmes, first as a licensed embalmer at a funeral home, all the way through to his elected position of Coroner in Marin County, California. His experiences are told in a series of short stories that range from his on-the-job visits to San Quentin Prison, to investigating Golden Gate Bridge jumpers, as suicides off the bridge are called.

This book was fascinating to me, and I found myself glued to the pages at times. It went into the physiological aspects of death, such as specifically how rigor mortis helps determine time of death. It also covered investigative techniques, such as tell tale signs that strangulation took place, or the difference between patent prints and latent prints. I didn’t realize before reading this book how much the coroner’s office actively investigates death, as opposed to only performing an autopsy. When the coroner’s office is called to a scene, it’s the death investigator that arrives first. Holmes is responsible in numerous cases, for discovering what initially appears to be a death from natural causes, or a suicide, is in fact a homicide. The book reads a lot like a true crime novel, but really taking the reader through the death investigator’s process in detail.

The book also delves into the more human aspects of the job, such as interviewing witnesses, managing bystanders, and notifying family members of a death, all told in a respectful manner.
The stories are never sensationalized. Holmes has the utmost respect for both the deceased and their loved ones, and it comes across in his story telling. He says “Coroners deal with death, but their purpose is to find answers for the living” and he took this very seriously, sometimes taking years before the answers are found, and as is the case in real life, sometimes answers are never found – there was not a tidy ending to some of the stories.

This book was so fascinating to me, maybe partly because my grandfather was a coroner. He was doctor, and he was one of the first with a medical background to be appointed to deputy coroner back in the 1930’s in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I find it interesting that back then, and still today, coroners do not need to have a medical background to become a coroner.

If you like true crime, forensics, or homicide investigation, I think you will find this book fascinating. It comes out on August 15, 2017.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing my copy; it was a pleasure to provide my honest thoughts here.

I received a free Kindle copy of The Education of a Coroner by John Bateson courtesy of Net Galley and Scribner, the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would post a review to Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and my history book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google Plus pages.

I requested this book as the description sounded very interesting. It is the first book by John Bateson that I have read.

I had high hopes for this book, but found that it was somewhat disappointing in that it was more a series of events not in any particular order and it became somewhat preachy with the author’s opinions in the last few chapters. While the cases were interesting, there was a great deal more detail that could have been included with each one. The author’s writing style makes for a quick read, but not as engaging as it could be.

Kenneth Holmes, the coroner, served many years in the different positions in the Marin County Coroner’s Office. He is protrayed as a steady empathic individual who rarely gave up on a case even years later.

I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a light read about a coroner and how he developed over his years in the position.

Ken Holmes's career at the Marin County coroner’s office spanned nearly forty years. He started out as a licensed embalmer at a funeral home, which led to him becoming a death investigator for the county. During the last twelve years of his career, he was the elected county coroner. In this book he reveals the intricacies of his job, a job that most people would rather not think about: the tell-tale signs our bodies leave behind, the collecting of evidence, the family notification process, differences between TV representations and real life, changes in technology over the years (fingerprint cartooning was a thing!), preparing the county for mass casualty events, running investigations in areas where people are hostile to law enforcement, working with press, and dealing with the politics. As an employee of the coroner's office, Holmes had to be not only a detective and a doctor, but a "consoler, advocate, educator, mentor, teacher, and bureaucrat."

One of the most surprising things I learned from this book is that there aren't any national standards for coroners. In most states, it's an elected position. Not all coroners are medical examiners and often they aren't even required to have medical training. The author mentions that one Indiana county elected a high school senior as coroner! I also had to adjust the high-tech image in my head of what I thought a coroner's office looked like. The Marin County coroner's office doesn't even have a lab or morgue on premises. Those services are contracted to outside facilities.

Marin County is an affluent area that's home to one end of the Golden Gate Bridge, one of the world's top suicide sites, and San Quentin Prison, location all of California’s 750 male death row inmates. Every year, approximately 300 of the 1,500-1,800 deaths in Marin County require autopsies. During his decades of experience, Holmes saw a wide variety of cases, both personally and through his colleagues' work. This book highlights the most interesting and memorable cases in his career, as well as the lessons he learned along the way. There are quite a few out-of the-ordinary incidents: a serial killer haunting the trails, a small cult near Holmes's home, celebrity victims and instigators, and the time Holmes became a witness to an active crime.

Real life truly is stranger than fiction! I would've found many of the cases unbelievable if Holmes hadn't experienced them for himself. A large number of the victims he investigated died by their own hand; more than twice as many Americans die by suicide than by murder. Since these are real-life cases, they don't all have neat and tidy endings. Some of the cases took decades to solve and many only reached conclusion by a series of unlikely coincidences. Thanks to Holmes's impeccable record keeping skills and his dedication to following cases even after they left his hands, there's closure to more cases than I expected.

There are so many fascinating cases in this book, but here are three that were extra memorable for me:
• January 1978: Carol Filipelli died in what appeared to be a drug overdose, but her toxicology screen came back negative for drugs. Nothing was adding up, so Holmes was persistent and kept digging for answers. It turns out that she may have been murdered by a former lover with a highly unusual weapon, but unfortunately any evidence was destroyed when she was cremated.
• June 1997: Death row inmate Sammie Marshall died after being forcibly removed from his cell. Holmes ruled it undetermined, but he believes it was a homicide and regrets succumbing to the pressure of law enforcement: “I’m not an advocate for inmates or anybody who does something bad, but I’m an advocate for doing something the right way, and they did it wrong." There's a revelation at the end of the chapter that makes the story all the more tragic.
• Two brothers thought a small town bank would be an easy target, but got more than they bargained for! The bank teller made four calls to handle the situation and only the last one was to the police department.

Not every victim gets justice. Sometimes by the time the details of the case become clearer, there's no way to prove their theories. Other times there are political concerns and budget constraints. The cops or district attorney may not want to deal with a case for various reasons, so the coroner's office might receive pressure to rule a certain way. Most California counties have a combined sheriff's/coroner's office where the sheriff is the coroner. During Holmes's tenure, the Marin County coroner's office operated separately from the sheriff's office. He outlines the benefits to having an independent coroner's office. For instance, law enforcement has priorities that may come into conflict with the interests of the victims' families. The time constraints of a combined office can lead to families never getting answers. In a couple of baffling cases, a person's death was determined to be a suicide even though there were multiple clues that pointed to foul play.

The body's process of shutting down may be gruesome, but it's an inescapable part of our life cycle. This book was a real page-turner! It has a very small-town feel, both because of the time Holmes spends on each case, as well as his and the author's personal connections to some of the victims. I side-eyed a few of the casual conclusions made based on appearances, but for the most part, this book is a fascinating look at a long and varied career. In the conclusion, Holmes talks about how his views on suicide victims, the good guy/bad guy dichotomy, and the justice system have evolved with his years of experience. I admired Holmes's dedication to the victims' families and the time and energy he devoted to their cases. His insistence on getting answers for the families made this book a compelling read. 

The author John Bateson also wrote The Final Leap: Suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge.

If you like coroner shows on TV you'll likely enjoy this book. It's full of behind the scenes info, and they chose many of the more interesting cases during Ken Holmes' nearly 40 years as a coroner. Lots of fascinating facts. it covers cases in Marin County, California which is a very beautiful area with some of the most expensive property in part of it, in another part it has a bridge with a high suicide rate, and yet another area, a prison full of a wide spread of case types. So it has all sorts of cases and covers everything from what's involved in covering a case from start to finish, what happens to John and Jane Doe cases, and things like what happens to all or any of the unclaimed property left behind by deceased people. My thanks to NetGalley, Scribner, and the author for providing me with an eARC
in return for my unbiased review.

It’s been a hot second since I’ve read some nonfiction and I was really looking forward to this book. I plucked it off Netgalley, thinking that it looked fascinating. From the beginning, it reeled me in. I think a lot of us find the concept of death fascinating, and the idea of what follows here, in the corporeal world, isn’t something I’ve thought much about, even though I’ve watched many crime dramas.

For instance, I had no idea what a coroner’s job entails. What I’ve gathered is that it’s a great deal of investigative work and a position that requires intensely strong people skills, observational skills, and strength. Coroners quite literally see it all, and they assist the police very closely in their work when a death doesn’t appear to be natural. It was really interesting to discover how the system operates after a person dies.

As much as I enjoyed Holmes’ anecdotes towards the beginning, things began to feel off to me about a quarter through the book. There’s one specific quote that set me off, in which Holmes completely discredits a woman’s rape allegation by saying that she was too heavy and not attractive enough to have been raped. He also throws in some casual racism regarding the situation. I have no idea why the author thought this was appropriate to include because, to me, it discredits Holmes as a serious investigator. How many other alleged crimes has he shrugged off because of how a woman looks? He talks about the injustices that the dead face, but how about the living?

Holmes then went on to tell what he thought was a heartwarming, funny story about a late coworker who egged on a bartender by speaking in a “Middle Eastern” accent. In talking about a robbery that he experienced, Holmes explained that he didn’t pull out his gun because the store was “filled with women” who could have been hurt–as if he is only concerned with hurting women. And there was a horrifying story in which a man told Holmes that he was going to kill himself and Holmes did nothing. In most instances it is required, if not legally then at the very least morally, to inform someone in a situation like that. Not only did Holmes keep this information to himself until after the fact–he also seemed not to express remorse for this decision, which struck me as shady and wrong.

In addition to all of that, I felt super uncomfortable about the fact that the book referred to all the deceased by name and revealed intimate information about their lives and families. Some of these cases were decades old, but some weren’t. I understand that most, if not all, of this information is probably public record, but it just felt really voyeuristic and like it was taking advantage of the deaths of all of these people just for the personal gain of these two men, Holmes and the author.

After these issues started creeping in, the book began to drag on for me. It’s less about the life of a coroner in general and more a memoir about one specific coroner’s career. It is also important to note that Holmes is a relatively privileged man working in an extremely privileged environment (“Marin ranks in the top one percent of counties nationwide in terms of affluence and overall health”) and that this is an extremely biased view of both life and death.

Generally an okay read and maybe something I’d recommend to folks interested in forensics, but I enjoyed it much less than I thought I would.

I'm not a big biography reader but I enjoy non-fiction that deals with career choices. I really enjoyed this book that is much more realistic than the tv shows that abound around the coroner's office. The writing is straight forward and very concise. The cases he reviews are interesting and the techniques he describes have changed tremendously over his lifetime. For any reader who is interested in forensic science and investigative procedures. Set in California the author details differences in training and education in various states. I couldn't put this one down.

If you are tired of TV shows getting it all wrong and sugar coating what a real coroner does, read this book and you will come to a new understanding of how it all works. Ken Holmes built his career in Marin County and has been through it all. This collection of his experiences is not only interesting, difficult to read at times, perhaps, but also makes you think about the realities of the world we live in.

From inner office politics to the actual hands on job of dealing with bodies and investigating, the author leaves nothing out of this gritty book. I found that once I began reading this, it was impossible to put down. The pages flew by until I reached the end. In some ways, it's hard to believe that these cases could be real, but they do say that truth is stranger than fiction. The level of human depravity and violence that Ken encountered day to day would break most people. You have to respect him for what he's seen during his career.

Overall, I thought this was a fantastic book filled with interesting details that will likely make most people stop and think, perhaps even appreciate the lives we lives each day. This is eye opening and terrifying, well-written and thought provoking. Definitely worth the time to read.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher provided through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

I am actually surprised as to how much I enjoyed this book. The beginning is a bit dull and I found myself skimming parts, but once I got into the actual findings and how the investigators were able to dig through the obvious to the actual, the book took a surprising turn for me.

John Bateson takes his time interviewing Ken Holmes and recounting his thirty-six year career at the Marin County Coroner’s Office starting as a death investigator and ending as the three-term, elected coroner. There are actual case studies, but there is no gruesome gore. In his career, Holmes focused on the family members. He emphasizes how important the job of coroner is when it comes to working with people compared to police investigators who are only looking at the facts of a homicides and do not take time with outward appearing suicides. Sometimes you do not know what you have until all the details are examined. How all the pieces may not become known until decades later, but a focused coroner investigator is always on the lookout for the parts that make up the whole.

Granted, this reads more like a memoir where Ken Holmes only recounts the “saves” in his long career, and recounts the “if it was not for me” stories, but such is life. He has a fulfilling career and it was interesting to see it from an insider’s perspective.

This book is great for anyone that is interested in the field of coroner. I love reading about unique and usually not well talked about careers and this one did not disappoint. Very interesting and informative I highly recommend it.

Fascinating and well written book. The author takes us far beyond the practical aspects of postmortem investigations, into the very heart of coroner Ken Holmes who spent his career examining the dead and caring for the living. A very educational and heartfelt read.

I found this book quite fascinating. It was about former Marin County Coroner Ken Holmes and some of the cases he worked over his career. It was a great look into how a coroner works, rather than the Hollywood glamorized version. This is real life, the nitty-gritty work of the man who works with the dead. I really liked this book. If you like Autopsy or any of those type shows, you will like this book.

While this book had some interesting stories about cases the cases Ken Holmes, who worked with the Marin County’s coroner’s office for thirty-four years, worked on, the book is more a collection of stories than a unified book on a subject.

The book is based on a series of interviews that the author John Bateson had with Kenneth Holmes who worked for thirty-four years in a variety of positions in the Coroner of Marin’s county’s office eventually becoming the Coroner of the county himself. Before I read this book, I did not know that to be a Coroner one does not have to be a Medical Examiner. A medical examiner is a doctor who is trained in pathology. A coroner is someone who investigates a death. What training a coroner has depends on the laws of the local jurisdiction. However, many coroners are closer in training to the police than to doctors.

The most enjoyable parts of the book are when the descriptions of the cases on which Ken Holmes worked. Marin County is located just outside San Francisco (before I read this book I thought it included San Francisco). It is both very affluent and it is known for the avant- gard lifestyles of its inhabitants. To be totally honest, I once thought it a county of crazy rich people. The cases described in this book reflect the lifestyles of Marin County. They involve cults, drugs, call girls, and adult entertainment.

One problem with this book is that it alternates between describing Mr. Holmes cases and Holmes the Mr. Holmes used in investigating deaths. This changing of focus lead to the book wandering from one subject to another. The book would have been better focusing either on the cases or on Mr. Holmes and his career.
However, Mr. Holmes as subject is not as interesting as his cases. He is very careful about what he says (he is a politician has been elected to office three times). Furthermore, Mr. Bateson does not challenge the Mr. Holmes in anyway. Perhaps the book might have been better if it was written in the first person with Mr. Holmes being the narrator and Mr. Bateson being a coauthor.

In the thirty-six years that Ken Holmes worked in the Coroner’s office there have been tremendous technological and societal changes that you would think have major influences on Ken Holmes work. However, the book does not go into these changes at all. The book lacks a certain amount of introspection and a unified theme.

If you want to read about Marin County, the book delivers. If one wants to read about being a coroner, the book leaves something to be desired.

4.5 actually.

brilliant, good, very well-done, well-organized.

The book merges key events from Ken Holmes professional life with some of the most memorable of the 762 cases that Marin County coroner’s office dealt with between 1970-2010.

Currently a 67-year old retiree, Holmes was a coroner for twelve years though he worked in the department for thirty-plus years. For all the scrutiny and paper record detail given to each case and the office politics, not much is told of Holmes’ home life, for e.g. how many times was he married? Affairs? Two divorces are mentioned: one in 90s and the other in 2002. How many children does he have? What was his relationship with wives and kids over the years? He sounds like a guy with a life though: he owned a 360-acre hunting ranch in Colusa County, 120 miles northeast of Marin; did auto racing, building, driving cars in circle track; camps; had a fancy car aka Ferrari which he later sold; a motorboat; two labrador retrievers; by his own admission, is an enthusiastic dancer; roots for 49ers and giants; and now works in ‘estate liquidation service’ and does consultancy in forensics. Also coaches youth sports and scouts.

Nicely catalogued/ chapter-ized, some typos. Got an ARC, so hope the final version has pictures of crimes/ criminals / suspects/ victims/ survivors, and the main characters / officers. Also, of journal-notes; and the ‘dog-eared map’ of wannabe robbers undone by 4 phone calls (first 3 were to farmers!)

I did not understand the list of books given at the end in bibliography - if something was taken from them and mentioned in the book, then there should be a corresponding page number.

Two suicides (of a 17 year old boy and a 16-year old girlfriend) are the last ones mentioned in the book but they don’t have a corresponding record in the list of 762 cases that is given at the end: 13 year old in Oct. 2010 and then 24 year old in May 2010; In Nov. 2010, meeting to merge coroner into sheriff’s office by Jan. 2011 is held. So no mention of these suicides.

Holmes says:
the more you are around death the more you appreciate death - that’s where my mind has been.
suicide attitude is a mental health problem;
in murder, an argument or grievance escalates, fueled by liquid or powder, male ego and machismo also enters ‘if I cant have u nobody else will.’
court system fails - punishment for marijuana vs. murders, for drugs you’re gone for life, for murder you’re out on good behavior
plea bargain is worst but necessary
poor have it the worst.

Memorable stories and my impressions on them:

- 15 trips of a 7-week old baby - (Devon, Katja, Jereme Gromer) - Baby called ‘Ndigo Campbell-Bremner Wilson-Wright’. (biracial: black+white) - never had Vit.D, never been out in sun, bones never developed - in an 800K priced gated house, 12 kids ranging in ages 8 months to 16years were kept in beyond cruel conditions. The man in charge was Winnfred Wright and there were 4 women ‘followers’. Devon, Katja, Jereme Gromer and Carol Bremner. Carol etc. should have gone to jail too - it’s nonsense to say that they were under fear of him when she was recruiting women / other prospective sexual partners for him - these women were not born with him or lived with him since infancy - they had been out in the world and seen the ropes. Mothers of 5 kids each get 7-10 years - that’s one and half years average for the misery that those kids faced for a decade (with lasting mental health issues). I think there should be a distinction between abuse, sadism and torture. Sometimes term ‘abuse’ doesn’t quite cut it. It was a classic case of women being sexually gratified and doped up who did not want to take responsibility for children or their own lives.

- In 80s man stabbed 3 times in the heart, found dead on the kitchen floor, one wound in lung, the other in belly; knife cleaned in sink and and put on the magnetic knife holder; Three police officers looked at the crime scene: police couldn’t develop any other scenario or suspect so they suggested he must have stabbed and cleaned up the knife himself, only to lie on the floor and die! They concluded that in their report that it was a suicide!

- Nils Exeter Edison - the german tourist, no ID, no clothing labels, bag has just clothing, no passport, no ticket, no airline tag, pays in cash, gives dinner to driver, goes to massage parlors, bars, dinner - for 3 days, ‘meets a friend at the bridge’. Doesn’t get solved 1986-2005 - is called ‘john doe 6-86’. For a while there I thought he wanted to bump someone off and got it first instead and why didn’t anyone check airport arrivals to know his identity? Anyways, he turns out to be Wolfram Fischer from a rich family, tells friends he’s going to U.S. with a lot of money ($3500/-15K) which he plans to spend in grand fashion before jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Case closed.

- San Quentin’s Sammie Marshall - black man, uneducated, psychotic, convicted of killing a prostitute; In 1997, his death sentence was reversed by California SC - he died while being ‘moved from cell to cell.’ lawyer ‘ron slick’

- 40,000 suicides, vs. 18,000 homicides. annually in U.S. : many suiciders drink to dull their senses and overcome self-preservation instincts, to have a fearlessness about dying.

- The Bridge: roadbed is 220ft above water making jumping from it equivalent to jumping from a 25 story building. 4ft high railing ‘to enhance the view’. It takes just 4-seconds to reach the floor - traveling at speed of 75-miles per hour.

(usually death is due to extensive subcutaneous emphysema? of the body resulting in marked distention of all facial features; pattern bruises: deep bruises, broken bones, damaged internal organs. If a person is alive, water in lungs: last seconds excruciating pain and terror)

- suicide is contagious

- ‘This is the last place i will step, breathe, speak or cry,’ wrote a 15 year old suicider.

- Carol Fillipelli, also known as Martha, Michelle, Maureen, Jade, Rose - an overdose that wasn’t, or so Holmes concludes: ‘wineglass with red liquid’

- Marlene out in 6 years! Riley the one with diminished capacity, gets life without parole.

- Miwok Indian tribe - bones found during construction.

- 1961/3 - the murder of Mrs. Jones by Mr. Jones - Tahitian wife ends up with everything!

- 'Children of Thunder': Elvis Bishop’s ex-wife, her boyfriend James Gamble and Bishop’s daughter murdered in Christ plot, alongwith 3 others, by Glenn Taylor and Justin Helzer and Dawn Godman.

- Tammy Vincent - (the girl who at first was thought of as one of the green river murder victims) - she had been stabbed, burnt and shot - Holmes theorizes she was done in by Gypsy Jokers, a motorcycle gang. Case never solved.

- The Trailside Killer, David Carpenter, sex-offender who didn’t come up in records of released inmates due to a technicality.


Things I did not understand:

- One of the very first cases is a jumper at Golden Gate - how does one know someone did not throw the woman off the bridge? Details lacking.

- Paroled offender Terry who kidnapped and killed a hitchhiker in his shed - what kind of injuries dod she have? It’s called gruesome but description is lacking: other than a neck slash wound and decomposition nothing is mentioned.

- 25 year old secretary dies in house fire. Why in the name of hell would she go back and someone would believe her husband? Details lacking.

- Gloria Ladd - suffocated her sons and took the dog to the Marine County Humane Society. Why? Details lacking.

- Bill and Tasia Stephens - categorized as a case of ‘latino’ jealousy (is Latino jealousy a special mixture that ‘whites’ do not have?)


Things I did not like:

Marin County, as the author and Holmes remind us, is a rich county full of famous people who live/d there such as Bonne Raitt, Carlos Santana, Huey Lewis, Janis Joplin, Sammy Hagar, Van Morrison, Metallica, Grateful Dead, psychiatrist Martin Binder’s wife Gail Elizabeth Sunny Doney, and the brush-off with Tupac Shakur! etc.

But mentioning Robin Williams is killing himself in the same house in Marin County where his mother died of natural causes, is taking the whole name-throwing a bit far: especially since Holmes did not have anything to do with his autopsy.

“Some deaths, on the other hand were just head-scratches, so strange that they almost defied belief.”

This is one of the most beautifully written books I have read about a coroner. Handled with delicacy and respect for both the living and dead rather than being ‘sensationalism’, Bateson tells the real story of what such a career entails. Without a question, much skill and intelligence is required in solving such mysteries, working in reverse to uncover the truth. But also, a lot of humanity. Ken Holmes worked as both death investigator and coroner in Marin County, California. With a three term career elected as coroner, Holmes had seen everything about death. From murders, suicides, drugs, and auto-eroticism each case had it’s own unique challenges. Controlling scenes are a little thought of task, not just the gawkers, but the dangerous neighborhoods where anyone in ‘authority’ are not welcome. The terrible reality of suicides off the infamous golden gate bridge and why where a body ends up can change the entire direction of solving what happened, a sometimes sad fact. Suicide is not romanticized anymore than any other death in this work, unlike what we read in our fiction or see on television.

Not having all the clues come together can cause years of heartache for family and friends, particularly when someone disappears and their body ends up elsewhere, unidentified as happens in a case, found in the chapter titled The German Tourist. Ken Holmes’ dedication is evident in each case he handled, and his humanity too as the deceased and their survivors have remained in his heart and mind. It is a fascinating and sometimes heartbreaking career, and thank God for people that are able to put aside their natural reactions (such as fear, repulsion) and uncover clues creating a semblance of order in finding the truth of what happened.

It takes courage and strength to go against authority, and just as much to speak to family members weighted down by not just grief but suspicion, distrust and anger. Going with your gut isn’t always popular but vital! Sometimes the answers are years in coming, but always remained fresh in Holmes’ mind. This is an engaging book dissecting Ken Homes’ fascinating long career. For a brief time the reader feels the weight of sorrow that follows Holmes but too the hope that he can at least provide answers for those left behind, as well as shed light birthing truth for victims that can no longer speak for themselves. Is there ever really closure? Of course not, but we need to know why death came and what is to blame, be it natural causes or death at another’s hand. We need to know the identity of the dead, because there is someone somewhere wondering what has happened to their loved one.

This is an engaging work, and I didn’t feel like I was reading something tawdry nor gory. Do horrific things happen? Absolutely, but it’s not about the carnage, there is a lot to understand and learn. This is one of the best books I have ever read. I can’t and won’t go into a detailed account of any of the true stories within, because this book won’t be out until August and also they need to be handled with delicacy and author John Bateson does a fine job all on his own.

Yes, read it! Fascinating, heart-breaking, moving and beautifully written.

Publication Date: August 15, 2017

Scribner

As someone that has been a death investigator for 20 years myself, I always try to look at books written by other death investigators/coroners and I greatly enjoyed this book. Very nicely written.

Ken Holmes worked in the Marin County coroner's office for most of his professional career. Beginning as a death investigator, he worked his way up to coroner, an elected position. During his career he handled all types of cases, from Golden Gate Bridge jumpers, to homicides to accidental deaths.

This book outlines a wide variety of fascinating cases that he handles. Skipping the gory details, the book focuses on what happened to the decedent and how Ken handled the situation. I had a hard time putting this book down and found myself googling some of the cases. Overall, highly recommended.