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Hybrid: Book Discussion: Hour to Kill True Crime

What the Dead Know by Barbara Butcher

Join us for our true crime book discussion group. This month’s title is: What the Dead Know: Learning About Life as a New York City Death Investigator by Barbara Butcher.

Barbara Butcher is only the second woman ever hired as a Death Investigator in Manhattan and the first to last more than three months. She investigated double homicides, gruesome suicides, and most heartbreaking of all, underage rape victims who had also been murdered. She writes with the kind of New York attitude and bravado you might expect from decades in the field, investigating more than 5,500 death scenes, 680 of which were homicides. In the opening chapter, she describes how just from sheer luck of having her arm in a cast, she avoided a booby-trapped suicide. Later in her career, she describes working on the nation’s largest mass murder, the attack on 9/11. This is the real-life story of a woman who, in dealing with death every day, learned surprising lessons about life—and how some of those lessons saved her from becoming a statistic herself.

Reserve a copy of the book while registering (we'll let you know when it's ready to be picked up), or come to the Central Library Reference Desk.

Questions? Email discussion leader Susan Gibberman at sgibberman@stdl.org.

Choose to attend this program in-person or watch online on Zoom. Please indicate your preference when registering. After registering, you receive a link to the Zoom webinar at least three hours before the program.

Want to switch your attendance preference from online to in-person (or vice versa)? No problem! Call (847) 923-3347 and we'll assist you.

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