DISSECTING DEATH: Secrets of a Medical Examiner
By Frederick Zugibe, M.D. with David L. Carroll
Broadway Books (NYP)

Forensics is a hot subject these days. Witness the part it plays in celebrity trials and on interview shows in the evening. Medical Detectives. C.S.I. and several other popular TV dramas spotlight the work of forensic scientists. DISSECTING DEATH: Secrets of a Medical Examiner will take readers behind the scenes to reveal the inside story of how forensic scientists solve crimes. The primary author is Dr. Fred Zugibe, the former chief medical examiner of Rockland County, NY, one of the nation’s most respected and widely recognized forensics experts, and features his most high-profile cases, explaining exactly how he cracked them using reasoning reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes. Dr. Zugibe has appeared on countless radio and TV programs, and has authored previous books on other subjects, several of which have received a good deal of media attention. He is nationally known as one of the most riveting lecturers on the subject of forensic pathology and medicine. His delivery is polished, erudite, fascinating, and always accompanied with remarkable visuals.

As a media consultant, Dr. Zugibe’s credits fill several pages. Most prominently, he has appeared on The Sally Jesse Rafael Show, Live at Five WNBC, Man Alive, Straight Talk (twice), The Geraldo Show, Arnold Diaz, NBC Interviews with Russell Baker, The Joe Franklin Show, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, CBS, WNBC, WOR, WNEW, WNET, WABC, and many others. Radio appearances include Barry Farber, Bill Ayres Show, Bob Grant Show, Harry Lipsig, Debbie Curuso, Karn Butler, Alan Colmes Show, News Watch Forum, Hanelle Tuebner, Talk Show Perspectives, and countless others. Zugibe has also contributed articles to (or been written up in) The New York Times, The New York Daily News, The New York Post, The Village Voice, Harpers, The National Inquirer, The Miami Herald, Gannett Westchester, to name but a few.

Taking 11 of Zugibe’s most famous and important cases (several of which are now among the classics of true crime), this 60,000-word book showcases the intricate and at times unconventional methods used in this sometimes bizarre area of medicine. Each chapter thus becomes a classic crime mini-drama, complete with its own scoundrels and good guys, its own mixture of mystery story, scandal, police drama, media frenzy, high tech wonders, famous people, and showcase trials. Readers will recognize many of these cases from the Six O’clock News. And yet, always behind the hair-raising narratives of solving a crime is the driving theme of the book – the inside story of those silent, unheralded geniuses in the pathology lab who use the most sophisticated methods we know of to solve the most unsolvable crimes. Other books have been written by medical examiners, but none have revealed the secrets of forensic detection the way this one will.

David Carroll is assisting Dr. Zugibe in writing this book. He holds a B.A., Magna Cum Laude, from Harvard (1964) and an M.A. in archaeology from Columbia. To date he has authored 31 books, all with major publishers, as well as 12 network produced television films. (Proposal and sample chapter available.)