Blood On the Table: The Greatest Cases of New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner

For almost a century, New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has presided over the dead in the greatest city in the world. Over the years, the OCME has endured everything - political upheavals, ghastly murders, bloody gang wars, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and nonstop battles for power and influence - and remains the final authority in cases of sudden, unexplained, or violent deaths.Founded in 1918 as an attempt to halt corruption within the coroner industry, the OCME has been marked by decades of both triumphant technological advancements and all-too-human failures, to evolve into its modern-day incarnation bearing an average case load of more than fifteen thousand suspicious deaths a year. This is the behind-the-scenes chronicle of public service and private vendettas, of blood in the streets and backroom bloodbaths, and of the criminal cases that made history and headlines. From crimes of passion to tragic acts of fate, the New York City OCME has seen - and solved - almost every crime imaginable. And it has survived to become the foremost forensics lab in the world.