In the city that never sleeps, some people never wake up. For almost a century, New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has presided over the dead. In that time, the OCME has endured everything--political upheavals, ghastly murders, bloody gang wars, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and non-stop battles for power and influence--and remains the final authority in cases of sudden, unexplained, or violent death.

Founded in 1918, the OCME has evolved over decades of technological triumphs and all-too human failure to its modern-day incarnation as the foremost forensics lab in the world, investigating more than 15,000 suspicious deaths a year.

This is the behind-the-scenes chronicle of public service and private vendettas, of blood in the streets and back-room bloodbaths, and of the criminal cases that made history and headlines.