More non-fiction reading: Aftermath, Inc.: Cleaning Up After CSI Goes Home by Gil Reavill. Reavill is a true-crime writer who decided he should go one step further and learn about what happens to a crime scene once the law is done with it. Therefore, he meets the owners of Aftermath Inc., the heavy-hitters in the field of “bioremediation” - providing cleaning services to bio-contaminated sites; usually death scenes, but not always.
Reavill jumps in with both Tyvek-clad feet, joining the technicians on several jobs - including a three-week decomp and a shotgun suicide. Taking as his mantra a line from the Roman poet Terence-- “Nothing human is foreign to me.”, he fights not only nausea and revulsion, but the temptation to dehumanize the situation. Instead, Reavill finds himself drawn to the signs of the life the person led beforehand. Reavill does detour a bit at times, discussing his personal encounters with accidental and violent death, as well as focusing in on the bloody history of Chicago (Aftermath Inc. is headquartered in a suburb of the city), including the slaughterhouses, H.H. Holmes and the Mob. The book is a mix of the factual situations and personal reflection, much like Mary Roach’s Stiff, tho with considerably less humor.
Recommended to fans of CSI and Hoarders who want to see the real-life repercussions of the storylines from the shows. Suggested fiction followup: The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston.