The Book of the Dead

The Book of the Dead is a popular forensic-science work by the forensic examiner Qin Ming. Taking "death education" as its main thread, it links forensic knowledge to the safety risks of daily life through the analysis of more than twenty real cases. Each case revolves around the fate of one deceased person: someone who went home alone drunk after a business dinner late on a cold winter night; someone who long endured domestic violence but dismissed it because "it wasn't really a heavy blow"; someone who ate spoiled food and thought it was merely an upset stomach; someone who suffocated in an accident on their wedding night. Qin Ming reconstructs the process of death from the forensic perspective, explains the basis for determining the cause of death, and then, through dialogue between an intern and a senior forensic examiner, points out dangerous details ordinary people might overlook and ways to save themselves. The book covers twenty-eight causes of death, drawn from thousands of real autopsy files, including drowning, heatstroke in a car, hanging, falls from height, freezing to death, death from domestic violence, burning, death from compression of the neck, positional asphyxia, amniotic fluid embolism, and complications of injury and illness. The author does not sensationalize the bizarre but stresses that these deaths, though they seem strange, are close at hand and most could have been avoided. The book includes a "Card of Life" and has served as an official publication for citizens' safety classes and been adapted into a popular-science radio drama; it won the Excellent Popular Science Work Award from the China Popular Science Writers Association.