What Bones Talk About. Murders, Wars, and Genocide Through the Eyes of a Forensic Expert

Clia Koff is a world-renowned forensic expert who has visited the sites of all military conflicts in recent decades. At just 23, as part of a UN mission, she went to Rwanda, becoming one of 16 scientists involved in excavating... human remains to study and prove the genocide of the Tutsis. Over the next four years, she would visit Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo, closely examining human remains in search of answers about how they died. Her book is half memoir, half field diary of what she witnessed: the exhumation of nearly five hundred bodies from a single grave in Kibuye, Rwanda; the discovery of wire-bound victims of the massacre in Srebrenica, Bosnia; excavations in Kosovo in the presence of victims' relatives. Sharing sometimes heartbreaking details of her work—hellish working conditions, UN bureaucracy, and encounters with the grief of survivors—Koff imbues her story with a huge sense of hope and the pursuit of justice. She is convinced: despite the authorities distorting versions of what happened, bones never lie.