Dissecting With Words

A GOOD part of me loves to read fiction. But only recently I got myself introduced to the writings of female authors. Call it gender bias, but I judge a book by its story, not by its cover, although occasionally by its author.

So I got books written by Barry Eisler, William Brodrick, Michael Alexander Eisner, David Hewson, and of course Tom Clancy and a few of Arthur Conan Doyle.

My first book by a female author was Phyllis Whitney’s Rainbow in the Mist (1989). I bought it in 1999 while doing some research on fictional literature that deals with the paranormal. And the ease of flow and dynamic way she told the story impressed me a lot.

Well, I got my first Kay Scarpetta novel in June 2010. Patricia Cornwell wrote the book Blow Fly (2003) to tell the story of a retired chief medical examiner from Virginia who can use bluebottle (Calliphora vicina), a blow fly capable of giving clues in determining the time of death. So it is reading about “post-mortem” autopsies in a snap.

I had assisted in an autopsy during my internship in a government hospital in Tagbilaran City in 1990. The smell was not inspiring, but the bonus points were.

But when I read about verbal autopsy in a research report lately, that put a question in my mind. Can words be that sharp (like a scalpel)? [Read more]

This articles appeared at SunStar Cebu on 11 May 2011.

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