In his forty-year career, Dr. Baden has conducted more than 20,000 autopsies and has consulted on numerous high-profile cases, including the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the Nicole Brown Simpson -- Ron Goldman murders. In Dead Reckoning, the authors take readers into the laboratory, to the autopsy table, onto the witness stand and out in the field to show how advances in forensic science can solve the crucial questions in a criminal case, often with startling accuracy.

Dead Reckoning examines cases both famous and little-known to explain why the first hours at a crime scene are crucial. 

*JFK's autopsy failed to disclose crucial evidence.
* The deaths of John Belushi and Elvis Presley were far more complex than anyone has let on.
* Decisive medical findings in the von Bulow affair were consistently overlooked.
These are but three of the shocking revelations in Dr. Michael Baden's first-person, no-holds-barred account of his distinguished career in forensic pathology.  Baden has come to the unavoidable conclusion that the search for scientific truth is often sullied by the pressures of expediency. He produces dramatic evidence to demonstrate that political intrigue, influence peddling, and professional incompetence have created a national crisis in forensic medicine.