In this clear-eyed, gritty, and enthralling narrative, Dr. Vincent Di Maio and veteran crime writer Ron Franscell guide us behind the morgue doors to tell a fascinating life story through the cases that have made DiMaio famous--from the exhumation of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald to the complex issues in the shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. Beginning with his street-smart Italian origins in Brooklyn, the book spans 40 years of work and more than 9,000 autopsies, and Di Maio's eventual rise into the pantheon of forensic scientists. One of the country's most methodical and intuitive criminal pathologists will dissect himself, maintaining a nearly continuous flow of suspenseful stories, revealing anecdotes, and enough macabre insider details to rivet the most fervent crime fans.

Inspired by the works of Dashiell Hammett, No Room at the Morgue is Jean-Patrick Manchette's unparalleled take on the private eye novel — fierce, politically inflected, and finely rendered by the haunting, pitch-black prose for which the author is famed. No Room at the Morgue came out after Jean-Patrick Manchette had transformed French crime fiction with such brilliantly plotted, politically charged, unrelentingly violent tales as Nada and The Mad and the Bad. Here, inspired by his love of Dashiell Hammett, Manchette introduces Eugene Tarpon, private eye, a sometime cop who has set up shop after being kicked off the force for accidentally killing a political demonstrator. Months have passed, and Tarpon desultorily tries to keep in shape while drinking all the time. No one has shown up at the door of his office in the midst of the market district of Les Halles. Then the bell rings and a beautiful woman bursts in, her hands dripping blood. It’s Memphis Charles, her roommate’s throat has been cut, and Memphis can’t go to the police because they’ll only suspect her. Can Tarpon help? Well, somehow he can’t help trying. Soon bodies mount, and the craziness only grows.

Unlike other American astronauts, Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom never had the chance to publish his memoirs—save for an account of his role in the Gemini program—before the tragic launch pad fire on January 27, 1967, which took his life and those of Edward White and Roger Chaffee. The international prestige of winning the Moon Race cannot be understated, and Grissom played a pivotal and enduring role in securing that legacy for the United States. Indeed, Grissom was first and foremost a Cold Warrior, a member of the first group of Mercury astronauts whose goal it was to beat the Soviet Union to the moon. Drawing on extensive interviews with fellow astronauts, NASA engineers, family members, and friends of Gus Grissom, George Leopold delivers a comprehensive survey of Grissom’s life that places his career in the context of the Cold War and the history of human spaceflight. Calculated Risk: The Supersonic Life and Times of Gus Grissom adds significantly to our understanding of that tumultuous period in American history. --Publisher

"The Rue Morgue Murders" is a pioneering tale in the mystery genre, in which detective Auguste Dupin uses his acute observation and logic to solve a brutal double murder in Paris, revealing a surprising and unusual outcome.

From rookie mistakes and runaway corpses to screaming dead men and unusual requests, a collection of stories by funeral directors.

Somebody in Pacific Point is guilty of a kidnapping, but what probation officer Howard Cross wants to find most is innocence: in an ex-war hero who has taken a tough manslaughter rap, in a wealthy woman with a heart full of secrets, and in a blue-eyed beauty who has lost her way. The trouble is that the abduction has already turned to murder, and the more Cross pries into the case the further he slips into a pool of violence and evil. Somewhere in the California desert the whole scheme may come down on the wrong man. Somewhere Cross is going to find the last piece of a bloody puzzle—a mystery of blackmail, passion, and hidden identities that might be better left unsolved.

Along the way he meets an unforgettable cabal of characters who populate the funeral underground - among them the Undertaker and the Crusader, the Anatomist and the Astrologer, the Organist and the Grave-digger - and learns why the living always get the last word, and why when sprinkling ashes it's best to use a wide-mouthed urn."--Jacket.

To Wake The Dead is a new take on the raising the dead phenomenon. What happens when people rationally try to investigate the living dead, and to give meaning to their existence? Can such an otherworldly occurrence be justified with the current scientific understanding of living things? How would people, and society, react to raising the dead, especially if it were to become routine, and even done against their wishes? Who would control the use of those who had the ability to raise the dead, and what would they be used to do? If it was our government, could they trusted? Ultimately, who could you trust? To Wake The Dead examines exactly what happens when the borders separating the living from the dead are redrawn, sometimes forcefully, and sometimes violently. No matter what positions the new boundaries occupy, the world will never be the same.