First Ever Book Review

My very first Thursday book review! like everything else about this blog I'm sure this new segment will evolve in the future but for today I have chosen to share  the book Mop Men: inside the world of crime scene cleaners by Alan Emmins. Not a normal summer read I agree but an interesting one never the less. Alan, a journalist, finds that his latest story pitches are not hitting the mark in today's media and looks for a new angle to pitch. In a roundabout way Alan moves to California to follow Neal, the owner of crime scene cleaners and his crew of merry moppers.

While the book can be graphic for the everyday reader I found the book to be more disheartening. Alan spends most of the book, in my opinion, looking down on those who treat death with a casual manner. He seems at times to feel superior to many of those around him while he works on the sidelines of jobs under Neal's company. This attitude is directed at times to the police working the crime scene, the other cleaners, those who work for motels or hotels where suicides are more common, and most often at Neal.

While I see how those who have not been exposed to death or first responders could misinterpret there reactions to death I find it sad that Alan never seems to fully comprehend the shift in there thinking or to stop holding his own attitude as the only "acceptable" model. in fact he at times seems afraid that he might have gone to some kind of dark side for thinking like those around him. If you have a loved one who is in a first responder field you might want to simply bypass this book for this reason.

While the overall book in interesting and holds some interesting incite it in no way compares to Stiff: the curious lives of human cadavers, a great read,  who's shoes I got the feeling it modeled.  All in all one that can be skipped

C rated.