title: Death Investigation in America: Coroners, Medical Examiners, and the Pursuit of Medical Certainty
author:  Jeffrey M. Jentzen 
description: Jentzen's book stands alone and defines a field. It is full of ironic twists and the grim comedy of the often bizarre stories of famous death investigations in the past. Jentzen has an eye for the right anecdote to illustrate a large idea, and has found wonderful quotations to drive home his points. The United States deserves a better system of death investigation; Jentzen helps us understand why we never got one. (James Mohr, University of Oregon)
zlib_text: "J" IS FOR JUDGMENT Sue Grafton
  
  1 ON THE FACE of it you wouldn't think there was any connection between the
  murder of a dead man and the events that changed my perceptions about my life.
  In truth, the facts about Wendell Jaffe had nothing to do with my family
  history, but murder is seldom tidy and no one ever said revelations operate in
  a straight line. It was my investigation into the dead man's past that
  triggered the inquiry into my own, and in the end the two stories became
  difficult to separate. The hard thing about death is that nothing ever
  changes. The hard thing about life is that nothing stays the same. It began
  with a phone call, not to me, but to Mac Voorhies, one of the vice-presidents
  at California Fidelity Insurance for whom I once worked.
  
  My name is Kinsey Millhone. I'm a licensed California private investigator,
  working out of Santa Teresa, which is ninety- five miles north of Los Angeles.
  My association with CF Insurance had been terminated the previous December,
  an