My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Crown Publishing for an advance copy of this book that is both memoir and a testimony for what the author has seen, the terrible evils that humans do to each other, and our attempts to use science and compassion to try and rectify these evils.

There was always a thought that in the end we leave behind only our bones, and the stories that others tells about us. Some would say the great works, the empires built the monuments, but those can go out of print, be paved over, or targets for pigeons, or for other humans who don't like what the monuments stand for. Our bones can tell the life we live, but only if the bones are identified, not buried in a pit in a field, or burned along with our homes in a fit of political pique. Murder is easy, destroying what remains takes work, work that very few want to deal with. Our world is littered with killing fields, many not far from our capitals, no matter how much political leaders don't want to either discuss or teach about them. Alexa Hagerty has in her book Still Life with Bones: Genocide, Forensics, and What Remains written about her time in the country of Guatemala, which after almost forty years of state sponsored terrorism has many bodies waiting to be found, and brought back to the people who love them. Hagerty discusses the science, the efforts, the time and how people react to finding, identifying, and learning about these bodies has on the families, the government, and the scientists.

The book begins with a lesson on how to find a body in the soil, and the steps taken to not ruin or disturb any evidence of who or why the body came to be where it was. There are many bodies in Guatemala, forty years of the state killing indigenous people, for politics, land, money, because foreign aid from America, along with weapons, and training in the School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Some bodies were left where they were shot by soldiers, some buried at great risk by families, as the Government made it illegal to tamper with those shot, because the wanted to use the fear of the corpse to keep the others in line. So many were buried covertly and quickly, though still with as much ceremony as possible, which causes problems with bureaucrats later. Readers learn of the Testimonio, personal accounts about seeing family members murdered by soldiers or police, and what happened after, which Hagerty as a social anthropologist took an interest in. There are also discussions about the bodies they find, how bones can describe they lives they lived, their occupations, even locations and what the village was like. The bones are sometimes the only thing left to remind that world that a person once walked the earth, until brutality ended that life to soon.

A very illuminating and sad book about life, death and what happens after, both in society, bureaucracy, and for friends and family. Not many remember these death squads and the problems that Guatemala and actually Central America had in the 1980's and 1990's, which is a still reverberate through today, with people forced to leave their countries because of long standing issues and violence. The book is very well written, instructional on forensics, but also on the soul and the people who have dealt with misery and death for so long, and who just want answers, and a body to mourn. Hagerty is a very good writer, full of doubts about what she is doing, but sure that what she is doing is right and important.

Recommended for readers of Latin American history, the story will be known to them, but this is still a well written book and will be of interest. For those interested in science and forensics the book has a lot of information, and a lot of practical advice and tips for work in the field. Also this book should be shared to let people know how bad history is, and how many actively don't want others to know about what happened, and continues to happen. I look forward to more books by Alexa Hagerty.

This book is both very easy and very hard to read. Easy to read because it feels like Alexa is just speaking to you one on one. I really enjoy nonfiction that is written this way. It feels like she is just talking to you and telling her story.

But it is also hard to read because it is telling such an important but tragic, heartbreaking story. The most shocking think to me was how recently these genocides occurred. While the topic is heavy and dark, it also feels cathartic. The individuals in this book are finally getting to have their say and tell their story.

I hope this book goes viral and many people get to learn about this piece of history.

Thank you to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for providing an eARC of this book.

This book was powerful and impactful, definitely a read I would recommend with the caveat that it does cover some pretty gruesome and horrific territory. Before reading it, I knew Guatemala was currently a violent place and that Argentinians had lived under a dictatorship sometime in the mid-to-late 20th century, but Hagerty opened my eyes to a history I didn't know the full extent of. She combines her experiences as a forensic anthropologist with historical information and first-hand accounts from the many people who lived through the violence in both countries to great effect. Essential reading, especially for those of us who know little-to-nothing outside of our own country's history.