Blood Beneath My Feet: The Journey of a Southern Death Investigator

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Description

Death visits us all but for Joseph Morgan it decided to stay. In 1987 Morgan was estimated to have been the youngest death investigator in the US working in a major metropolitan area. Follow his life and career in this hard dose of Southern reality - in all its grisly details. Necrophiles, trailer parks and human cigarette lighters are all part of this slice of life from the morgue and the crime scene.

Reviews

"The terse, earthy tone and black humor read like hard-boiled fiction." - The Statesman "The book intersperses Morgan's real-life experiences from crime scenes with stories from his childhood in New Orleans in classic Southern gothic style that one author dubbed "Mem-Noir."" -Oxford American "...a great book utilizing traditions in Southern storytelling to appall and amaze. It is contemporary Southern gothic at its best." -The NOLA Defender " ... it is easy to imagine Joseph Scott Morgan making a cameo appearance in Faulkners 'A Rose for Emily.' Blood Beneath My Feeta sanguinary, though not at all sanguine workclearly functions as a 'therapeutic memoir'. With it, Morgan has pumped the old 'open a vein and start writing' axiom into a torrential burst of aortic hemorrhaging; instead of the usual razor, he used the Grim Reapers own scythe on himself." Candice Dyer, Paste Magazine "If you ever had an interest in this profession (forensics), this is a book that will give you the cold, hard, unvarnished truth. Morgan is jaded, and for good reason." You've Gotta Read This (blog)
"The terse, earthy tone and black humor read like hard-boiled fiction." - The Statesman "The book intersperses Morgan's real-life experiences from crime scenes with stories from his childhood in New Orleans in classic Southern gothic style that one author dubbed "Mem-Noir."" -Oxford American "...a great book utilizing traditions in Southern storytelling to appall and amaze. It is contemporary Southern gothic at its best." -The NOLA Defender " ... it is easy to imagine Joseph Scott Morgan making a cameo appearance in Faulkners 'A Rose for Emily.' Blood Beneath My Feeta sanguinary, though not at all sanguine workclearly functions as a 'therapeutic memoir'. With it, Morgan has pumped the old 'open a vein and start writing' axiom into a torrential burst of aortic hemorrhaging; instead of the usual razor, he used the Grim Reapers own scythe on himself." Candice Dyer, Paste Magazine "If you ever had an interest in this profession (forensics), this is a book that will give you the cold, hard, unvarnished truth. Morgan is jaded, and for good reason." You've Gotta Read This (blog)

Author Bio

Joseph Scott Morgan became a death investigator with the Jefferson Parish Coroner's Office in suburban New Orleans in 1987. At the time of his hire,he was estimated to have been the youngest medicolegal death investigator in the country working in a major metropolitan area. Over the course of his career he was required to work in the morgue during the day and subsequently work as an investigator for the coroner at night.

In 1992 Morgan accepted the position of Senior Investigator with the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office in Atlanta, Georgia, where he remained until 2005 when he medically retired. During his tenure he was a part of the United States Department of Justice Task Force for the design of a national standards for death investigators nationwide. He was one of the founding members of the American Board of Medicolegal Death Investigators. In 2002 he achieved National Board Certified "Fellow" status, the highest ranking for a death investigator in the United States.

Morgan is now a college professor at North Georgia College and State University where he teaches Forensics courses.

Joseph Morgan was named 2013 Author of the Year by the Georgia Writers Association.