I wade waist-deep into the ocean to reach a body floating face down in the local harbor.

Police, first responders, and onlookers quietly watch from the shoreline, but blood splotches and marks in the sand suggest that something awful has happened here.

In 1981, while practicing medicine in a small community on the southern coast of British Columbia, Dr. Robert Crossland is asked if he'd be interested in becoming the local coroner. Like many, Robert has thrilled to the crusading adventures of TV coroner Wojeck and Quincy, M.E., so he takes up the challenge. But soon he is to find just how far these TV programs are from the real world of a community coroner.

During the following twenty-three years, Robert will investigate and report on more than 600 sudden, unexpected deaths in his community and in the surrounding ocean, lakes, forests, and mountains. In each case, he must establish not only who has died but when, where, how, and why. As a member of the community himself, he often finds himself personally connected with those who have died. Many of the deaths are natural, of course, but a surprising number are exceptional due to complicated, startling, unforeseen, and sometimes even astonishing circumstances and findings.

These are the stories of more than a hundred of these remarkable, often horrifying events.
They happen in homes, at work sites, during recreation, or while travelling in boats, planes, or on roads. Some of the deaths prove controversial and Dr. Crossland participates in inquests that lead to changes in policies or procedures that reduce the risk of further deaths ... or sometimes, heartbreakingly, make no difference at all. Sudden death is always disturbing and in vivid, pithy, engaging anecdotes based on his case files and notes, Dr. Crossland shares with readers, the who, when, where, how, and why.