The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths Are Solving America's Coldest Cases

Mary Roach meets C.S.I. in this lively study thats part whodunit, part sociological studyThe result is eminently entertaining and will be devoured by armchair detectives (Publishers Weekly). Currently, upwards of forty thousand people in America are dead and unaccounted for. These murder, suicide, and accident victims, separated from their names, are being adopted by the bizarre online world of amateur sleuths. Its DIY CSI, solving cold cases from the comfort of your living room In an absorbing look at a very odd corner of our world (The Seattle Times), The Skeleton Crew provides an entree into the gritty and tumultuous world of Sherlock Holmeswannabes who race to beat out law enforcementand one anotherat matching missing persons with unidentified remains. These web sleuths pore over facial reconstructions (a sort of Facebook for the dead) and other online clues as they vie to solve cold cases and tally up personal scorecards of dead bodies. There is no better guide for navigating this multifaceted world than Deborah Halbers book (Psychology Today), and The Skeleton Crew probes the macabre underside of the Internet and how even the most ordinary citizen with a laptop and a knack for puzzles can reinvent herself as a web sleuth. Engaging and artful (Los Angeles Times Review of Books), this witty and insightful look at the fleeting nature of identity is brilliant (The Wall Street Journal).