Who would have ever thought that a book about the dead would hold so much weight for the living? But forensic pathologist Ryan Blumenthal’s new book, Trace, does just that and more.
It’s a riveting read that’s as simple as it is complicated and leaves a lot of breadcrumbs in-between to shape personal narratives.
Blumenthal has a fascinating job, but it’s the kind of work that demands a strong constitution and sensibility.
The dead tell stories; crime scenes leave trace evidence, and together there’s a narrative that tells investigators what happened. But it’s not as simple as that.
The author just distils it so well that anyone who’s ever watched CSI Las Vegas, Miami and New York will enjoy this book a hundred times over.
Beyond CSI, the book reminds me of an eighties series about a forensic pathologist, Quincy.
Trace is unputdownable. Blumenthal unpacks how an unnatural death because of, wait for it, a wasp sting, saw a victim shed this mortal coil.
In another story he shared, with a picture, finding a 3-metre-long tapeworm inside another deceased person. Then there’s lightning as a cause of death or, for that matter, just being near the spot where it strikes.
Trace is unputdownable reading
Humour, in pathology-speak, is also aplenty, and at first glance a few anecdotes are somewhat strange, but jeez, it creates massive colour in a world that most of us thought pretty much black and white. But it’s not binary at all.
Instead, forensic pathology tells us the stories that we can endeavour to change in future narratives, and how there are some very real consequences to human action or, for that matter, inaction.
In Trace, Blumenthal wrote that “South Africa loses about one per cent of its population every year due to natural causes, such as old age and illnesses such as Aids, cancer, TB, heart attack, and so on.
This equates to about 500 000 to 600 000 natural deaths per year, which do not require a medicolegal autopsy.
About 60 000 to 80 000 of the country’s population die every year due to unnatural causes, such as accidents, homicides, and suicides. South Africa, therefore, has an average of about 70 000 autopsies per year.”
He then went on to share some scary data, given the importance of the work that he and his peers perform.
“Data shows that South Africa’s forensic pathology service is currently under great strain, with only 80 to 90 qualified forensic pathologists serving more than 64 million people, against the backdrop of about 70 000 unnatural deaths per year. Forensic pathologists have extremely high caseloads (more than 250 autopsies per forensic pathologist per year), and this often results in backlogs.”
Forensic pathology can’t be a nice job
It cannot be a nice job. After reading Trace, memories of charred remains of bodies and people that were alive hours before the 2021 Boksburg gas tank explosion came rushing back.
It’s the remains of victims like that that Blumenthal must interrogate and, contemplating some of the content of his book, sometimes a lot worse.
Unnatural death also means murder, and in Trace, a 2017 case, it laid bare just how deliberate some killings can be.
The body of a man was found in a shallow grave near the Hennops River, already in an advanced stage of decomposition after days in bitterly cold conditions. During the exhumation, Blumenthal tells of a disturbing discovery.
The victim’s index finger had been cut off, and crucially, it had been done after death. This was evident because there was no bleeding at the wound.
The post-mortem later confirmed he had been strangled. The reason for the mutilation was as calculated as it was chilling.
The killer had removed the finger to use it on a biometric access system at a security complex, allowing him to leave the scene without raising suspicion.
Now that’s the kind of stuff we see on CSI and in the movies. But it’s real life, and Trace is as engaging and succinct and entertaining and teachable as books can get.
Highly recommended and well worth exploring, Blumenthal’s previous works, too, include Risking Life For Death and Autopsy: Life In The Trenches With A Forensic Pathologist.
