An Unexplained Death, Mikita Brottman
An Unexplained Death, Mikita Brottman
3 Rating(s)
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An Unexplained Death
The True Story of a Body at the Belvedere

Author: Mikita Brottman

Narrator: Mikita Brottman

Unabridged: 8 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/06/2018


Synopsis

This program is read by the author.

An Unexplained Death is an obsessive investigation into a mysterious death at the Belvedere—a once-grand hotel—and a poignant, gripping meditation on suicide and voyeurism.

“The poster is new. I notice it right away, taped to a utility pole. Beneath the word ‘Missing,’ printed in a bold, high-impact font, are two sepia-toned photographs of a man dressed in a bow tie and tux.”

Most people would keep walking. Maybe they’d pay a bit closer attention to the local news that evening. Mikita Brottman spent ten years sifting through the details of the missing man’s life and disappearance, and his purported suicide by jumping from the roof of her own apartment building, the Belvedere.

As Brottman delves into the murky circumstances surrounding Rey Rivera’s death—which begins to look more and more like a murder—she contemplates the nature of and motives behind suicide, and uncovers a haunting pattern of guests at the Belvedere, when it was still a historic hotel, taking their own lives on the premises. Finally, she fearlessly takes us to the edge of her own morbid curiosity and asks us to consider our own darker impulses and obsessions.

About Mikita Brottman

Mikita Brottman is a writer and psychoanalyst living in Baltimore, Maryland. Her book, An Unexplained Death, was shortlisted for the Gold Dagger Award for nonfiction by the Crime Writers Association of the UK. She has a DPhil from Oxford University and is a professor of literature at the Maryland Institute College of Art.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Valerity (Val) on October 21, 2018

An Unexplained Death: The True Story of a Body at the Belvedere This is the story of missing man Rey Rivera, a very tall guy who’d been supposed to finish work on putting together a video project for his boss. He never even showed up for the rented production booth space to finalize it that he’d paid......more

Goodreads review by TheBookWarren on August 13, 2022

3.25 Stars — An absolute bonkers of a mystery, the Rey Rivers case is still one I often think about and catch myself alternating between suicide/murder giving insight that I’ll obviously never really be able to decide barring some further evidence from somewhere unlikely! The author here has ultimat......more

Goodreads review by Jillian on July 12, 2020

So this book throws a lot of information at you about backgrounds, hotel information, suicide information, different kinds of deaths in different places, but if you can see past all the information she actually comes up with a pretty good theory on the mysterious death of Ray Rivera, do I believe it......more

Goodreads review by Carlos on April 16, 2020

I dont know how to review this one, while this was supposed to be about a murder in the Belvedere Hotel and a small study into suicides...it ended up becoming a weird personal journey for the author and a platform where the author feel comfortable to let us know all of her thoughts about herself. Th......more

Goodreads review by Kim on January 03, 2019

I had to skim through this book to try and see it through. This one reads like a CDC report, what with all the statistics on and dry facts regarding suicide. The book then suddenly changes tone to the random ideas put down in the author’s diary. The author dwells on feeling invisible but at least th......more


Quotes

Praise for Mikita Brottman:

“Idiosyncratic…poignant…When Brottman writes, she’s a virtuoso: poised and sure-footed, confident and graceful, witty and relaxed.” —Baltimore Sun

"[A] fascinating and unvarnished book about criminals as rough-hewn literary critics. I tore through The Maximum Security Book Club." —Wally Lamb, New York Times bestselling author of We Are Water

“Filled with marvelous anecdotes and insights, The Great Grisby...explores human-dog bonds in history, art, mythology and literature… lively.” The New York Times Book Review