One thing about Miranda Mancini that has never changed is the name everyone knows her by---Munch. But the child abused by her father and sent into prostitution, the young girl who stole money because she couldn't do without her drugs, the woman who spent awful months in prison---that person no longer exists. Instead, Munch Mancini is the surrogate "mother" of a friend's loving little girl, a woman who can top any male car mechanic's talents with a tool, and the unbelievably happy fiancée of police detective Enrique "Rico" Chacón. It's an ordinary life and it's exactly what she wants. Everything changes when an early-morning call from homicide detective Mace St. John, the nearest thing Munch has to a father, brings unbelievably terrible news. Rico is dead, having been shot during a drug bust. Munch learns that Rico was shot by one of his fellow officers---and not by accident. This news energizes Munch in a way she wouldn't have believed possible. She knows in her head and her heart that Rico could not have been on the wrong side of the drug bust. The police department insists that Rico was working with the drug dealers. But a pair of special officers with Narcotics have other ideas. They ask Munch to go undercover and mix with the suspected dealers. They are certain it will prove that Rico was innocent. Munch agrees. She could easily end up dead herself---but if she can clear Rico's name, she will have what she wants. That's Munch Mancini.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 licence. This book is a multidisciplinary work that investigates the notion of posthumous harm over time. The question what is and when is death, affects how we understand the possibility of posthumous harm and redemption. Whilst it is impossible to hurt the dead, it is possible to harm the wishes, beliefs and memories of persons that once lived. In this way, this book highlights the vulnerability of the dead, and makes connections to a historical oeuvre, to add critical value to similar concepts in history that are overlooked by most philosophers. There is a long historical view of case studies that illustrate the conceptual character of posthumous punishment; that is, dissection and gibbetting of the criminal corpse after the Murder Act (1752), and those shot at dawn during the First World War. A long historical view is also taken of posthumous harm; that is, body-snatching in the late Georgian period, and organ-snatching at Alder Hey in the 1990s.

Death is inevitable. But bad deaths-- accompanied by unnecessarily prolonged pain and suffering, often aggravated by immensely costly and frequently futile medical treatments-- can be avoided. This book offers clear and valuable examples of how, through frank communication with caregivers and loved ones and the use of Advance Medical Directives such as living wills, those who are facing the possibility of death in the foreseeable future, and those who help them cope, can greatly minimize or eliminate end-of-life turmoil, family dissension, and pain.

Living Life While Navigating the Death of a Loved One If you recently lost a loved one, How to Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies is the lifeline you are seeking. Dr. Therese Rando’s compassionate and comprehensive guide will help you navigate the storm and find your way back to solid ground. Whether dealing with sudden loss or mourning a long-anticipated passing, this book acknowledges that each person’s journey through grief is unique. It equips its readers with the tools to understand and address their grief, communicate with children about death, attend to any unfinished business, and find support and other resources to help them move forward with their lives. Dr. Rando emphasizes the importance of self-care and encourages the acceptance of appropriate help and support from others. She provides practical strategies for managing grief during difficult times like the holidays, for planning funerals, and for creating meaningful personal rituals. First published in the late 1980s, Dr. Rando’s book is an enduring guide to the emotional, practical, and spiritual aspects of loss. With decades of clinical experience and international acclaim, she is a leading expert on the grieving process. While this guide is intended for people who have lost a loved one, it is also a resource for carers, or anyone else, who wish to support someone navigating the path of bereavement. In the face of loss, this book is not just about surviving, but about living—truly and fully.

Following the death of her father, journalist and hospice volunteer Ann Neumann sets out to examine what it means to die well in the United States. When Ann Neumann’s father was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, she left her job and moved back to her hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She became his full-time caregiver—cooking, cleaning, and administering medications. When her father died, she was undone by the experience, by grief and the visceral quality of dying. Neumann struggled to put her life back in order and found herself haunted by a question: Was her father’s death a good death? The way we talk about dying and the way we actually die are two very different things, she discovered, and many of us are shielded from what death actually looks like. To gain a better understanding, Neumann became a hospice volunteer and set out to discover what a good death is today. She attended conferences, academic lectures, and grief sessions in church basements. She went to Montana to talk with the attorney who successfully argued for the legalization of aid in dying, and to Scranton, Pennsylvania, to listen to “pro-life” groups who believe the removal of feeding tubes from some patients is tantamount to murder. Above all, she listened to the stories of those who were close to death. What Neumann found is that death in contemporary America is much more complicated than we think. Medical technologies and increased life expectancies have changed the very definition of medical death. And although death is our common fate, it is also a divisive issue that we all experience differently. What constitutes a good death is unique to each of us, depending on our age, race, economic status, culture, and beliefs. What’s more, differing concepts of choice, autonomy, and consent make death a contested landscape, governed by social, medical, legal, and religious systems. In these pages, Neumann brings us intimate portraits of the nurses, patients, bishops, bioethicists, and activists who are shaping the way we die. The Good Death presents a fearless examination of how we approach death, and how those of us close to dying loved ones live in death’s wake.

"Morbid and illuminating" (Entertainment Weekly)—a young mortician goes behind the scenes of her curious profession. Armed with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre, Caitlin Doughty took a job at a crematory and turned morbid curiosity into her life’s work. She cared for bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, and became an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. In this best-selling memoir, brimming with gallows humor and vivid characters, she marvels at the gruesome history of undertaking and relates her unique coming-of-age story with bold curiosity and mordant wit. By turns hilarious, dark, and uplifting, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes reveals how the fear of dying warps our society and "will make you reconsider how our culture treats the dead" (San Francisco Chronicle).

"Sudden, unexpected death notification stresses everyone involved. Grave Words: Notifying Survivors about Sudden, Unexpected Deaths provides a way to ease the pain a little - for notifier and survivor alike. It explains, step by step, how to relate tragic news to survivors by providing true-life case studies, in-depth information, and protocols tailored to a variety of situations." "Protocols for death notification by physicians, nurses, emergency medical services personnel, chaplains, medical examiners or coroners, and police officers are detailed in the book. Also included are bereavement resources and support groups, a death-notification course outline, police and military in-line-of-duty notification protocols, and airline disaster protocols."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved