Teenagers in Bergenfield, New Jersey, started a suicide trend in 1987, when several “popular” kids from the local high school gassed themselves in their car. Donna Gaines, a social worker and former Long Island rocker teen herself, reported the story in a 1987 article in The Village Voice that forms the basis for this book. Gaines is accepted by, and hangs out with, the black-T-shirt-wearing Bergenfield youth, a clique where all the girls wear bandages on their wrists. This is a fairly detailed document of the teen-suicide aesthetic, yet for all its detail and empathy, the book is oddly boring, but then, that’s kind of the point: suicide as an expression of mediocrity. HJ

Publisher: CRC
Paperback: 263 pages

“Without a doubt the most comprehensive, definitive and practical medicolegal textbook on forensic pathology today.” Chapters include: “Medicolegal Investigative Systems” (definition of death, operation of a medical examiner system, etc.), “Time of Death” (livor mortis, rigor mortis, decomposition, insect activity, etc.), “Deaths Due to Natural Disease” (cardiovascular disease, deaths due to intracranial lesions, respiratory system, etc.), “Wounds Due to Blunt Trauma” (abrasions, contusions, lacerations, defense wounds due to blunt force, etc.), “Blunt Trauma Injuries of the Trunk and Extremities,” “Trauma to the Skull and Brain: Craniocerebral Injuries” (impact injuries, acceleration/deceleration injuries, death due to cerebral concussion, boxing injuries, etc.), “Wounds Due to Pointed and Sharp-Edged Weapons” (stab wounds, incised wounds, chop wounds, etc.), “Asphyxia” (suffocation, strangulation, sexual asphyxia, crucifixion, etc.), “Deaths Due to Motor Vehicles,” “Airplane Crashes,” “Neonaticide, Infanticide and Child Homicide” (battered baby syndrome, “impulse” or “angry” homicide, the shaken baby syndrome, etc.), “Death Due to Fire,” “Drowning” (drowning in bathtubs, scuba divers), “Topics in Forensic Pathology” (primary cardiac arrest during exercise, starvation, death in the dental chair, water intoxication, deaths due to electrolytic disorders) and more. Provides “graphic and descriptive photographs throughout the text that highlight for the reader exactly what to look for and how to handle specific situations.

Publisher: CRC
Hardback: 528 pages
Illustrated

“Provides critical information in the classification of gunshot wounds caused by handguns, rimfire and centerfire weapons, rifles and shotguns, as well as some less common weaponry. Covers issues concerning small-arms fire and forensic pathology, such as: basic forensic aspects of ballistics and wound ballistics; the importance of x-rays in autopsy; the detection of gunshot residues; the correct handling of deaths caused by firearms; and suicide by firearms.”

Publisher: CRC
Hardback: 454 pages
Illustrated

“The world of the homicide detective is permeated with human tragedies which involve a variety of sudden and violent death scenarios. Many of these events, which are seemingly beyond the comprehension of the average person, reveal motivations and patterns of repetition which are recognized by the experienced homicide detective. Professional homicide investigators become keenly aware of the reality of death and the impact it has on both society and the surviving family… The professional homicide investigator must learn to deal with death in a clinical manner.”
At nearly 1,000 pages, this is a handbook expressly for the professional detective, extensively illustrated, including such morbid gems of police photography as a suicide by rifle fire to the face; evisceration and anthropophagy (“Subject engaged in post-mortem mutilation of the victim’s body. He eviscerated her and removed her ovaries, which he consumed”); contents of a “murder kit” (a camcorder with an x-rated porno tape, black nylon stockings and fishnet stockings, a pair of gloves, a bottle of chloroform with a mask, a syringe containing a horse tranquilizer, a bondage gag, two clothes pins and a number of pre-tied ropes with slip knots); a female victim posed for “shock value” with a shotgun placed into her vagina; Ted Bundy shortly before his execution; and hundreds more. Also features Jeffrey Dahmer’s personal Polaroids of posed victims and decapitated heads and body parts courtesy of the Milwaukee Police Department. Chapters include: “The Homicide Crime Scene,” “Specific Investigative Duties at the Scene,” “The Crime Scene Photographs,” “The Crime Scene Sketch,” “The Homicide Crime Scene Search,” “Estimating the Time of Death,” “The Identity of the Deceased,” “Suicide Investigation,” “The Investigation of Sex-Related Homicides,” “Homosexual Homicides,” “The Autopsy,” “The News Media in Homicide Investigations,” “Identification of Suspects” and “Investigative Assessment: Criminal Personality Profiling.”

Publisher: CRC
Hardback: 599 pages
Illustrated

“Photographic documentation of evidence for presentation of an argument in a court of law is forensic photography… The purpose of this text is twofold; first, to bring together in one readily available resource all the latest methods of photographic documentation, including the old tried-and-true methods with cameras, film and lighting sources as well as new procedures involving video and thermography. Second and most important, the format of the text is a practical step-by-step application of forensic photography. Students and professionals alike will be capable of using any camera together with the aid of this methodology in producing their own photographic documentation.” Covers still photography for fire/crime scenes, motor-vehicle accident scenes, aerial and underwater photography, surveillance photography, photographic aspects of physical injuries and fatalities, evidence documentation and legal aspects of visual evidence.

Publisher: CRC
Hardback: 292 pages
Illustrated