Dead Center

Shiya Ribowsky spent fifteen years as a medicolegal investigator at the medical examiner's office in New York City, an agency widely regarded as the largest and most advanced of its kind anywhere. Drawing on his medical training, he directed inquiries into more than eight thousand deaths, took part in several of the city's strangest cases, and ultimately oversaw the largest forensic identification effort ever undertaken: naming the people who died in the September 11 attacks. This memoir opens the doors of that office and offers a rare look at how the city's dead are examined and understood.

Raised in New York's Orthodox Jewish community, Ribowsky seemed an unlikely fit for a career among the dead. He had been on course for medical work with living patients before choosing instead to face mortality every day, drawn by the challenge of that daily confrontation. From there the book follows him through the cheap, pest-filled flophouses of the Bowery and the wealthy apartments of the Upper East Side, where he records in unsparing detail the hidden histories that surface after someone dies.

He also takes readers into the autopsy room, where a scalpel and a body can reveal secrets that no one else can uncover. Ribowsky argues that forensic work does more than solve crimes, since it can also save lives.

The book's final sections cover the office's response to September 11, when its staff was tasked with identifying as many of the victims as possible. Ribowsky describes the steady, tireless work of the investigators and their dealings with grieving families, showing the resolve, intelligence and compassion the effort required. Part haunting and part moving, the book offers a portrait of death and life in New York City.