All That Remains: A Life in Death

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She was the lead anthropologist for the British Forensic Team's work in the war crimes investigations in Kosovo, and she was one of the first forensic scientists to travel to Thailand following the Indian Ocean tsunami to provide assistance in identifying the dead. Cutting through hype, romanticism, and cliché, she recounts her first dissection; her own first acquaintance with a loved one’s death; the mortal remains in her lab and at burial sites as well as scenes of violence, murder, and criminal dismemberment; and about investigating mass fatalities due to war, accident, or natural disaster, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Also just to see how we are all very much the same, as you say 🙂 There is something very comforting about that! Content Catnip is a quirky internet wunderkammer written by an Intergalactic Space Māori named Content Catnip.

The harrowing stories of her involvement in identifying mountains of bones in charred buildings in Kosovo in the 90’s or in body identification after the Boxing Day Tsunami in Thailand are the most powerful and moving parts of the book, these have an emotional immediacy to them that other parts of the book lack. From the beginning it's clear that Black is not a forensic pathologist, determining causes of death via autopsy, nor an overly science-y person all together.The best book I've ever read on anatomy and death (and philosophy, in the form of thoughful essays) is by F. Honestly, my five stars are for a great book, but mostly they are for the woman she is and the service she so willingly provides.

As you can guess she sees the aftermath of horrific events, and the stories are quite touching (as well as possibly triggering, fair warning).

Every person in the world will experience a time when someone close to us dies, including the funeral and coming to terms with it and mourning, so talking about this at length seemed a bit pointless. Whether in Kosovo or in Thailand, where she assisted with identifying victims after the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Black accepts that such forensic work is “a job that nobody else in their right mind would ever want to do”. It is a form of analytical automation…the real me remains outside of that box somewhere, removed and protected from the sensory bombardment of my work. The book explores aspects of the author's life - part biographic and part recounting of significant cases she has dealt with. Photograph: Morgan Silk View image in fullscreen Sue Black: forensic work is ‘a job that nobody else in their right minds would ever want to do’.

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.However she has also dealt with truly horrifying events such as mass graves in Kosovo and the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami. 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 what her work has taught her.