Book Review: Coroner's Journal: Forensics and the Art of Stalking Death

Reviewed By: A. Rolfingsmeier

Coroner's Journal: Forensics and the Art of Stalking Death     Amazon US TPB Amazon Canada TPB
Louis Cataldie
Class/Genre:   Non-Fiction   Mystery   True Crime   Forensics
The Berkley Publishing Group (Penguin), 2006, 331 pages

The word “autopsy” is Latin for “to see for oneself”. The coroner’s job is to listen skillfully to the murmured, whispered, and shouted truths from the dead, who can no longer speak for themselves in any other way, except through the truth of their bodies.

For Dr. Cataldie, the study of death contains lessons for the living. As a new doctor, he starts his professional life in the mid-1970s. His first death investigation in a small Louisiana town - verifying that a pulpwood worker had indeed died because a large log fell on his head - led to his acting as Baton Rouge’s coroner for more than ten years, and to his recent appointment as state-wide medical examiner for the hurricane disasters in 2005. Dr. Cataldie is always respectiful of his patients, sad at the loss of their passing away, and gives each case a “full-court press” when investigating the time, cause, and manner of death.

Louis Cataldie manages to tell stories in a first-person memoir format in a humble way. His way of coping with overwhelming tragedy and violent death as coroner in Baton Rouge is to chronicle his feelings and impressions periodically. He simultaneously educates about forensic pathology, while entertaining the reader with how very different things are in Louisiana.

A. Rolfingsmeier

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, A. Rolfingsmeier