Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for the ARC! I devoured this memoir in two days. Perfect for the true crime obsessed and fans of Caitlyn Doughty and Mary Roach. This book is a seamless meld of the dark workplace content and Butcher's biography. She details an honest account of determining causes of death in the busiest city in America. She describes her harrowing venture from addiction to becoming one of the most prominent investigators in the city. She uses moments in her life to give us the right amount of background to understand her perspective of individual cases. I found the chapter on her responsibilities during 9/11 the most heart wrenching. She has a job that is so important to society, that most could barely stomach. Butcher gives the reader insight to all sorts of deaths and educates us on the process of the inevitable. Trigger warnings abound

Thank you to Net Galley for this ecopy of What the Dead Know by Barbara Butcher.This is a wonderful book for fans of true crime..There are so many interesting,, fascinating stories..This is a book that you can’t put down.Set in New York City, it covers the time period of the 80s through the early 2000s including the 9/11 recovery.Barbara , as a medical examiner , dealt with any suspicious death in NYC including murders, suicides, and natural deaths .Highly recommend!

I am an avid fan of Patricia Cornwell and upon seeing her endorsement of this title I was of course intrigued. The book did not disappoint. However, reading it you must remember it is NOT fiction which makes it more remarkable.

Butcher is honest in her writing about her alcoholism/drugs, depression, and the coping of it all. It is amazing that she was able to pull herself up by the boot strings and continue on a wonderful journey with New York's OCME. The stories flow across the page - but to be honest I felt a little, just a little, left hanging on some of the stories. I wanted a little more information. Upon reflection Butcher probably wanted to give privacy to others in the stories since they are REAL people and deserve it.

Barbara Butcher relays events as a member of the Medical Examiners Office. Her lessons of life while being an alcoholic in a brutal life as a death investigator are compelling and real. Considering this in not fiction but real life experiences it is eye opening as to the life and times of people and their depravity. I could not put this book down. I am a fan of fiction/medical examiner books and this just brought home the reality of that life. Butcher should be commended for her realistic portrayals and her heart felt admissions to her mental health.
#netgalley #whatthedeadknow

Fascinating when the author stays on track. Book is about forensics and law. That's why I read it. What is a real drag is the incessant talk on her part about her addiction; bottoming out problems. I don't care. Other readers won't care.

This is a fascinating look at the life of a medical examiner's eyes and ears. Butcher recounts a life full of challenge and adversity--substance abuse problems, depression, etc--that finds meaning in a career swirling around death. The tales here are ghastly and fascinating and the entire book has a nice literary quality to it. My only substantial complaint is that many of the cases described have no follow up--how were they ultimately solved (if at all)? Butcher's retrospective offers a good reminder of the importance of building a complete life that includes a pursuit of multiple values simultaneously. This book will remind a certain generation of the horrors of 9/11 from the very epicenter of ground zero, while also serving as a good reminder of how lousy Bill de Blasio was and is.

What the Dead Know - Barbara Butcher

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this eARC.

I LOVED this spellbinding book; I greedily consumed in one long session where time flew by all too quickly! A 5 star book in EVERY aspect.

The only negative thing about this book is that it is one of a kind, once the need that you didn't know you had for this type of book has been created, you realize this is the only account that fulfills your new obsession.

This is not only a heartfelt, in-depth and truly fascinating account of Ms. Butcher's time as a New York City Death Investigator, it is also a heartfelt memoir where the author lets us be a witness to her struggles in both her work and personal life.

This woman is a hero who deserves our gratitude as she was constantly willing to deal with situations few of us (thank God) will ever be called upon to face, and she dealt with this situations with both professionalism and humanity.

She should have left either floods of gratitude and accolades, but such is the ungrateful and political side of a public position.

Read the book, you'll see!

Trigger warning: Due to the nature of the author"s role, prepare for brutal honesty frequently the nauseating and unfathomable violence and cruelty that disturbed and/or soulless individuals can enact on their neighbors, strangers, enemies, and even former "loved ones".

This account is equally as honest and detailed regarding the sickening effects of time and mother nature on the human body as it decays.

If you found this book as spellbinding as I did, check out: Written in Bone -
Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind AND/OR All That Remains: A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes - both are by Sue Black and they are skillfully written fascinating true life accounts of a forensic pathologist and the weird things she learned and encountered during her career.

This memoir is two tales in one. On one hand, it records the life of a New York City death investigator. The stories on this level are descriptions of murder, accident, and suicide scenes in the true crime genre, only without the ‘whodunit’ closing of the cases. On the other hand, it is a compelling story of a woman who hits rock bottom and how, after becoming a death investigator, she rises in life, only to be struck down again and rising once more. Both tales are intertwined and told honestly and compassionately, and they have much to teach us about life.

Reading this book feels like sitting down for a long chat with Barbara Butcher as she tells you all about her life, full of stories from her career with the NY Office of the Chief Medical Examiner as a Medicolegal Investigator (the second woman hired and first to last more than 3 months in the job). The book flows from one topic to the next, full of anecdotes of cases and events that significantly impacted her life. Butcher is insightful and honest, with a wry humor. She covers topics that are deeply personal, from her battles with alcoholism and depression, how she dealt with being a woman in a man's field (in the early days), how facing death every day drained her emotionally, behind the scenes of working the aftermath of 9/11 and, finally, how she had to learn who she was outside of her job. A riveting & revealing read.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Shuster publishing for sharing providing an ARC of this book for review. All opinions in this review are my own.

Fascinating memoir by one of the few female medical examiner in New York City. Honestly, being male or female really has nothing to do with it -- she clearly has a sharp, focused, and forensically oriented mind and that can come in any package. Covering individual cases with detail and depth as well as the personality that finds it all engaging, it's a gripping read!

What the Dead Know by Barbara Butcher ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Many thanks to @netgalley and @simonandschuster for the ARC. This one comes out June 20, and you don’t want to miss it!

For all the fans of true crime and medical nonfiction, you are going to want to add this to your TBR asap! This memoir was completely engrossing. Butcher didn’t shy away from any of the nitty gritty details she found at the scenes she worked, but she still was respectful of the humans.

I was surprised at how vulnerable Butcher was in explaining how this job affected her and what she learned. I enjoyed reading as she connected the dots to her experiences and her feelings. If all people discussed mental health like she did, the topic would be less stigmatized.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book. For those that don’t like gore and guts and conversations surrounding death - be it accidental or intentional - this one is not for you.

What the Dead Know is an absolutely incredible memoir about Barbara Butcher who was a Death Investigator in NYC’s Medical Examiner’s Office. I loved the way this books was structured. Each chapter told the story of an interesting death she had investigated interspersed with the story of her life. I loved how honest she was regarding her struggles as an alcoholic and her recovery. One of my favorite memoirs ever.

This is an interesting memoir. The bulk revolves around the author's job as a death investigator. She describes numerous cases that she has worked on and includes the sometimes-emotional challenges in dealing with them. She also writes of her struggles with alcohol use and depression.

I liked the author’s non-judgmental attitude and observations about people. She is accepting and curious, without being preachy. Though I note she often equates being alone with loneliness, which is not necessarily the case.

It was an interesting read and has made me consider how our careers impact our personal lives, but also how people die & are discovered afterwards.

I was provided with an ARC (thanks to the author & publisher!) and I am voluntarily posting my honest review.

Why not 6 stars? BECAUSE I CAN"T! What a fantastic and simply compelling memoir. NOT normally my thing, I adored this and I know my patrons will as also!

The author is a remarkable woman, and this unflinching and honest memoir is fascinating, heartbreaking, horrifying, sad, scary, and more engrossing than many fiction thrillers. Back when she started as a pathologist, the field was almost exclusively male, but Butcher was determined to succeed. Thanks to her determination and resourcefulness, she made it to the top of her field. I’m not usually interested in memoirs because the personal details about people’s lives don’t appeal to me that much – when I read these books, it’s more about what they do than who they are. Butcher’s story, though, was so insanely fascinating, that even the most personal details had me turning the pages. Her battles with alcoholism and depression (heavy, clinical, suicidal…) are poignant and heartbreaking. The horror of her daily professional life, from multiple murders, decomposed bodies and the aftermath of 9/11 could have been intolerable to read about, but she maintains a very dark gallows humor throughout, that made me chuckle at some things that had no right to be funny. Be forewarned that the book is very, very, very graphic. I’m not a squeamish reader but there are things here that I wish I could bleach out of my brain. If you can stomach it, this book is worth reading.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, #NetGalley/#Simon & Schuster!

What The Dead Know is such a fascinating book, filled with interesting and peculiar stories about the author’s career as a death scene investigator in NYC.
Butcher is very honest about her personal journey through being a recovering alcoholic.
This is a very raw, poignant, at times hilarious memoir.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC. This book blew me away on so many levels. The author has truly been through it and it shows in her writing style and story. The forensic aspects are so interesting but I felt more drawn to HER story. What an incredible life. The struggles and determination is palpable. Go get this book!!

I requested this ARC because I have a background in forensics, so I’m always looking for stuff like this. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the author had a background pretty similar to mine. I’ve been sober for almost 14 years, and the second chapter really dove into her journey into sobriety which eventually led to her amazing career. It brought a lot of things back for me, but in a good way. I’m not kidding when I say her story sounds almost like mine, and it was honestly refreshing to read, especially from someone in the same industry (or former, in my case). She even made mention of my absolute favorite reference book (and one I still use today in my writing), Spitz and Fisher’s Medicolegal Investigation of Death. If you don’t have it, BUY IT! When she got to the chapter about 9/11, I had to fight back the tears. I wasn’t there myself, but I remember every bit of it. I was still in school getting my forensics degree. I wanted more than anything else to volunteer for the DMORT team, the team that the author worked on. To this day, it’s my biggest regret that I didn’t, but I had a one year old at the time. My heart broke for her at the end of her story, but I am glad that she was able to find happiness. Thank you so much Barbara for writing one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read. And thank you for showing people like us that there is a life after sobriety.

Huge thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for sending me this ARC for review! All of my reviews are given honestly!

Trigger warnings: for suicide and 9/11

Completely riveting! This is a great read and if some of this stuff fascinates you as it does me, you won't be able to put this book down until it is finished. The author told these stories with a complete look at the entire picture not just what she had to do.

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
I recently read another book about OCME so I was interested to get another perspective. This book didn't disappoint. Told with some dark humor but respectfully, I did enjoy this book. The last couple of chapters were so incredibly sad. How she dealt with 9/11 and eventually, her mental health.

Didn't work for me. DNF at 30%. I couldn't connect with the writing style it felt a bit rushed. Might work for others as the content was interesting. I just couldn't connect with the authors voice.