Corpse: Nature, Forensics, and the Struggle to Pinpoint Time of Death

In this book, Sachs accompanies an eccentric group of entomologists, anthropologists, biochemists, and botanists – a new kind of biological “Mod Squad” – on some of their grisliest, most intractable cases. She takes us to the ultra-bizarre Body Farm in Knoxville, Tennessee, where scientists watch bodies decay in order to learn the secrets of decomposition and death. She also takes us into the courtroom, where “post-O. J.” forensic science as a whole is coming under fire and the new multidisciplinary art of forensic ecology is struggling to establish its credibility.” In the end, Sachs reveals death to be not a single moment in time, but an elaborate dance, as insects and microbes colonize a corpse, and efficiently – even gracefully – return it to the earth. The story of the 2000-year search to pinpoint time of death. Corpse is also the terrible and beautiful story of what happens to our bodies when we die.