An Unexplained Death
The True Story of a Body at the Belvedere
ISBN10: 1250169143
ISBN13: 9781250169143
Hardcover
288 Pages
$28.00
CA$36.50
“The poster is new. I notice it right away, taped to a utility pole. Beneath the word ‘Missing,’ printed in a bold, high-impact font, are two sepia-toned photographs of a man dressed in a bow tie and tux.”
Most people would keep walking. Maybe they’d pay a bit closer attention to the local news that evening. Mikita Brottman spent ten years sifting through the details of the missing man’s life and disappearance, and his purported suicide by jumping from the roof of her own apartment building, the Belvedere.
As Brottman delves into the murky circumstances surrounding Rey Rivera’s death—which begins to look more and more like a murder—she contemplates the nature of and motives behind suicide, and uncovers a haunting pattern of guests at the Belvedere, when it was still a historic hotel, taking their own lives on the premises. Finally, she fearlessly takes us to the edge of her own morbid curiosity and asks us to consider our own darker impulses and obsessions.
Reviews
Praise for An Unexplained Death
"Brottman meticulously follows any and all threads she can ...but Brottman's book is, sneakily, more than just a true crime narrative." —NPR.org
“What better place for a mystery than in an iconic old hotel such as the Baltimore Belvedere? . . . The topic is enthralling.”—San Francisco Book Review
“This book works as both a glimpse into the well of obsession (Brottman’s) and as a philosophical treatise into the nature of suicide . . . Anyone who enjoys true crime is liable to enjoy the story behind Brottman’s search and Rivera’s death.“ —New York Journal of Books
"[A] page-turner . . . those who choose books with dark subject matter, suspense, and microhistory elements will all find something to enjoy here."—Booklist
Reviews from Goodreads
BOOK EXCERPTS
Read an Excerpt
I
MY BULLDOG IS only ten months old. He still needs to go out early in the morning, while it is dark. I get out of bed, put on my sandals, pick him up, and, in my nightdress, quietly leave my apartment and press the button...