Ocme

Go behind the scenes inside the nation's preeminent Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, where good people fight the good fight amid the tragedies and absurdities of our age Perfect for fans of David Simon (Homicide, The Corner, The Wire, We Own This City) Real life is different from what gets depicted on procedural crime dramas. Former journalist Bruce Goldfarb, who spent ten years embedded in the Maryland OCME, pulls back the curtain to explore the year-by-year story of a pioneer in the field of forensic medicine that is now chronically in crisis. Touching on numerous national scandals, from the Freddie Gray case to Derek Chauvin's trial for the murder of George Floyd, Goldfarb tells a story with national implications through the experiences of the OCME's dedicated staff, who undertake their tasks with professionalism and compassion under increasingly daunting conditions. They are good people fighting the good fight, and losing. TV shows and movies make inquests and autopsies seem exciting, even glamorous, but when untimely deaths from opioids and a chronic shortage of qualified experts run up against budget cuts, political demagogues and public ignorance about the role medical examiners play in the justice and public health systems, things get interesting in a hurry, and in ways you would never imagine.