All That Remains: A Life in Death

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Reading memoirs by people I have never heard of before is something I very much enjoy. The thought that each and every human being on this planet is leading their own life which is unique and distinct from all others is an unfathomable idea and yet so fascinating. Part memoir, part science, part meditation on death, her book is compassionate, surprisingly funny, and it will make you think about death in a new light. I'm not going to lie, but this book made my spine tingle, profusely. A book based on the matter of death, probably shouldn't excite and intrigue a being as much as it has, but that day, earlier this year, when I bought this book in Waterstones, I had my Mum with me at the time, and although we have similar tastes, she has been known to raise that right eyebrow at some of mine. One might expect [this book] to be a grim read but it absolutely isn't. I found it invigorating!' (Andrew Marr, BBC Radio 4 'Start the Week')

I think a good subtitle for this book would be something along he lines of "How to Read a Dead Body Like a History Book about the Life of That Specific Person." And what if you want to live, but other people decide you have no value, that you're a "useless feeder" as Hitler termed it. What if your family can't afford the financial burden of caring for you? What if the government decides they can't fit your care into the budget? This is already the case with socialized medicine. Thousands of Canadians can attest to the fact that they are receiving treatment in the U.S. because they didn't qualify for treatment in their own country. Readers who expect a precise in-depth recitation of her work on bodies will be disappointed. She details only the essential science, with edited descriptions of her examinations of bodies. I believe she edits the autopsies because they are of real people with living relatives. Besides, many of us ordinary general readers probably couldn’t handle too much of graphic medical narratives, although she does get into general descriptions of rotting bodies, and of bodies having been torn apart or damaged, and the smells and appearances of a dead body. She mixes quite a lot into her autobiography her feelings and thoughts - perhaps too often and over-the-top, imho. She really wants to put across to readers her concern for the proper respectful handling of the bodies. She never loses sight of the fact that the bodies were people. In All That Remains she reveals the many faces of death she has come to know, using key cases to explore how forensic science has developed, and examining what her life and work has taught her. Do we expect a book about death to be sad? Macabre? Sue's book is neither. There is tragedy, but there is also humour in stories as gripping as the best crime novel.An engrossing memoir . . . an affecting mix of personal and professional' (Erica Wagner , Financial Times) The book is closely based on the Colonial Parkway Killer, a suspected serial killer who is thought to have murdered 8 people in Virginia in the 1980s. In real life the cases are still unsolved though, as described in the true crime documentary Lovers’ Lane Murders from 2021. As Cornwell's novel made many believe that the Colonial Parkway murders had been solved, [2] father-daughter true crime authors Blaine Pardoe and Victoria Hester issued their book A special kind of evil in 2017, providing new information from the investigations. [3] Characters [ edit ] A killer is stalking young couples, and the remains of 8 youngsters have been found dead over a couple of years. [1] A model of how to write about the effect of human evil without losing either objectivity or sensitivity . . . Heartening and anything but morbid . . . Leaves you thinking about what kind of human qualities you value, what kinds of people you actually want to be with' (Rowan Williams, New Statesman)

Having read 8 chapters, the majority of it is a glorified memoir of her work and serves solely to inflate her ego. It’s certainly not what it says on the tin. I’m (yet again) finding it difficult to organise my thoughts surrounding this book. It’s an intense, sometimes clinical, portrayal of death in a very pragmatic and scientific way. It’s equal parts cold and without feeling in its descriptions of death, yet also simultaneously deeply emotive and moving. I found that at times I had to step away from it, because although fascinating, I found myself becoming too attached to the cases. I’m also deeply in awe of the author’s knowledge, enthusiasm and respect for the subject she teaches. All That Remains provides a fascinating look at death - its causes, our attitudes toward it, the forensic scientist's way of analyzing it. A unique and thoroughly engaging book. Kathy Reichs, author of TWO NIGHTS and the Temperance Brennan series At first I was hesitant with this book, because there is just no way around it that death is a topic that easily gets gruesome. But this book turned out to be so much more intriguing than I could have guessed up front. What impressed me most is that Sue’s warm personality is clearly present from beginning to end. You get to know her as a loving mother, a no-nonsense woman, and she never fails to keep in mind morality. What I did not like about the books was that she spent too many chapters philosophizing about life and death ("what is life; what is death...what makes a person a person...what constitutes identity et al...")All That Remains is a crime fiction novel by Patricia Cornwell. It is the third book of the Dr. Kay Scarpetta series. I suppose I was less taken with the small sections near the beginning of the book that seemed to be more like a familial memoir or history rather than delivering facts and experiences. Although there was always a reason for them, such as a device to further expand the readers understanding of various biological processes etc., I just wasn’t that taken with them in comparison to the later chapters.

She often finds herself dealing with the most macabre cases of murder. But the no-nonsense Scot is an upbeat character with a dry sense of humour, clearly identifiable in her memoir. Hannah Stephenson, Daily RecordThe book has the feel of the author having referred to an exacting diary because it is so well-written, coherent, and put together. It could be mistaken for a first-person literary novel, actually, if it wasn’t labeled as a memoir. Reading this book is like watching your favorite crime series only much more down to earth and more realistic. Just as thrilling, because Sue has experienced a fair share of ghastly situations, but shows you the relevance of her work, and why respectful treatment is important. The programme was even more fascinating than I could have imagined and helped me discover more about both the process of identifying human remains and what kind of person it takes to do it. This book expands on much of what was in that interview, as well as adding more details about her life, work, and the cases in which she's been involved. It's a mish-mash of history, science, memoir, police investigations, cold cases, natural disasters, education and invention...not to mention some handy tips for would be murderers er...writers about procedure. For example, dismembering a body in certain ways cases too much leakage, making it harder to move and there really is a best way to remove a human head. And don't forget about the smell if you try to hide body parts in your cupboard or beneath your driveway (yes, she's seen this). Since the bathtub is well sized for a human body, people usually use it to cut up their inconveniently sized dead so Scene of Crime officers start their search there as a matter of course. Apparently it's hard to cut up/saw through a corpse without scratching the bath surface and it's very difficult to clean all the necessary drainage parts. Sadly, she didn't suggest better alternatives but I have these snippets of advice mentally shelved in case I ever need them. Which I won't, obviously. Poignant and thoughtprovoking… it is the book’s humanity which will connect with readers. Scottish Daily Mail She is an excellent writer, too. If she ever decides to write a literary novel, she won’t need much assistance from an editor or ghost writer! Interestingly, a lot of American and British mystery writers know her or of her, and some of them call her for advice in writing their fictional books of murderous antagonists.