UNNATURAL CAUSES

'The Life and Many Deaths of Britain's Top Forensic Pathologist' is the sub-title of this haunting page-turner. Dr Richard Shepherd has performed over 23,000 autopsies. A detective in his own right, he must solve the mystery of sudden or unexplained deaths. How did this person die? In the pursuit of truth he has encountered serial killers, natural disasters, 'perfect murders' and freak accidents. His evidence has put killers behind bars, freed the innocent and turned open-and-shut cases on their heads. Yet all this has come at huge personal cost. His book tells the story not only of the bodies and cases that have haunted him the most, but also how to live a life steeped in death. This unputdownable record provides a unique insight into a remarkable profession, and above all a powerful and reassuring testament to lives cut short. Thoughtful, revealing, chilling, bizarre, this memoir is sometimes gruesome but always gripping. 445pp, Penguin paperback.