Dead Men Do Tell Tales
The Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist

As much as I love a good forensic anthropology tale, I had trouble becoming interested in the stories while dancing around some of the most pompous, self-serving writing I've seen on the subject. Maples pats himself on the back and paints a picture of the victim's crusader for justice, when it's qui......more

A very interesting account of Maples' career, thoughts, & more interesting cases. He's about the same age as William M. Bass, best known for Death's Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales. I found Bass more enjoyable to read, although no more interesting.......more

Imagine that your uncle or grandfather were a forensic anthropologist who worked on famous cases like identifying the remains of the Romanov family or figuring out if President Zachary Taylor had died of arsenic poisoning, and you asked him to tell you stories every time you got together. As he told......more

Like many other reviewers, I found this book to be somewhat verbose, occasionally redundant, somewhat sexist, and the author - while definitely accomplished and intelligent - arrogant (interestingly, a trait he doesn't hesitate to point to with disdain when observed in his colleagues!). In many plac......more