Mop Men: Inside the World of Crime Scene Cleaners (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: crime scene cleaners, evidence code section, Alan Emmins, San Francisco, Neal Smither (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Who cleans up when a killer leaves a really big bloody mess? In a chatty, tongue-in-cheek profile of Neal Smither, chief of Crime Scene Cleaners Inc., journalist Emmins lets the Boss Cleaner speak passionately of how he tackles spills and splotches resulting from the San Francisco Bay area's murders, suicides and other deaths. Emmins delves into the zany character of Smither, a loving family man who puts on a coarsely humorous persona as protective armor as he surrounds himself with the dark realm of death, monitoring his multimillion-dollar business in a highly competitive field. Hanging around with Smither means a grisly experience of suicide surrounded by transgender porn, bodies splattered by gunfire or the decayed corpses of those ruined by meth or contagious disease. For a totally gonzo way of looking at the crime scene cleaning business, try this engrossing, wisecracking assessment (of Smither, Emmins writes, [I]f not actually one of Death's litter, he must be at barest minimum a cousin) of a world we know exists but ignore as we go on about our lives. (Jan.)
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Review

Who cleans up when a killer leaves a really big bloody mess? In a chatty, tongue-in-cheek profile of Neal Smither, chief of Crime Scene Cleaners Inc., journalist Emmins lets the "Boss Cleaner" speak passionately of how he tackles spills and splotches resulting from the San Francisco Bay area's murders, suicides and other deaths. Emmins delves into the zany character of Smither, a loving family man who puts on a coarsely humorous persona as "protective armor" as he surrounds himself with the dark realm of death, monitoring his multimillion-dollar business in a highly competitive field. Hanging around with Smither means a grisly experience of suicide surrounded by transgender porn, bodies splattered by gunfire or the decayed corpses of those ruined by meth or contagious disease. For a totally gonzo way of looking at the crime scene cleaning business, try this engrossing, wisecracking assessment (of Smither, Emmins writes, "[I]f not actually one of Death's litter, he must be at barest minimum a cousin") of a world we know exists but ignore as we go on about our lives. (Jan.) (Publishers Weekly )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1 edition (January 20, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312532741
• ISBN-13: 978-0312532741
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #188,922 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mop Men - , January 21, 2009

By	Kelly Smith (Cambridge, UK) - See all my reviews

Picking up `Mop Men' I was as out of my comfort zone as the author, Alan Emmins, was when he donned a white protective suit and picked up the industrial cleaner. Not a fan of blood and gore (I hide behind a cushion during CSI), I didn't know what to expect and wasn't sure if I wanted to `go there'. But Emmins took me along for the ride. And after the opening lines, I went willingly. He faces each new day and every new scene to clean with a fresh eye and a fast pulse. The reading experience mirrors Emmins' own fears as he, and by extension, the reader, face their own bloody mortality. This is prose on speed. Emmins scrubs away at blood stained walls and his own tainted thoughts, as he attempts to make sense of his changing responses to death and life. At once horrified and intrigued by Smither's own attitudes, Emmins gradually understands that to see death, you have to get up-close and personal. And it ain't pretty.

The rooms Emmins and Smither clean up are littered with somber reminders of the living, and the tragic aftermath of their dying. And Emmins takes a long hard look at what it means to be here and what we leave behind. Moving, keenly observed, darkly comic, Emmins can make you laugh, cry and gag in the space of page. Describing Neil Smither, the owner of Crime Scene Cleaners Inc. as `indelible' - Emmins continues, "Neil is so harsh that once he has entered your head you will remember him for the rest of your life. He himself is like a bad stain that you can't scrub away." The impact of Emmins' powerful prose is equally indelible. This is the best way to be ink stained. And you won't forget it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Murder - Messes - Millions, January 20, 2009

By	Sean Merrigan "BookHogg" (New York) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Alan Emmins' prose style is direct, blunt, and absolutely perfect for his theme, the story of Neal Smither and his company, California-based 'Crime Scene Cleaners'. "Although the body appears free of decay immediately after death," he informs the reader, "there are bacteria inside the body that feed off the contents of the intestine. When the body dies, the bacteria start eating the intestine itself." Curious and at points unashamedly unable to hold down his lunch, Emmins' guides the reader through suicide scenes, garbage houses, filth and gore in his acutely observed and highly disturbing odyssey.
Mop Men would be a prime contender for the sort of prurient pseudo-reportage that often winds up in weekly magazines aimed at pubescent boys. It's got all the hooks; month-old corpses decaying in bath tubs, chubby maggots doing their grim business, there's even an anecdote about a teenager whose liver explodes messily after a prolonged alcohol binge.

However, Emmins' portrait of the work done by Smither's 'trauma scene' cleaning company goes a long way beyond the mere recounting of grisly stories. Focusing on the banal profusion of Hollywood violence and the growing dislocation felt by many individuals in the modern world, Emmins' book attempts a deeper understanding of a culture in which Smither's motto, 'Gore sells, my friend,' holds such currency.

Interestingly, it is when Emmins' material unexpectedly dries up, an unprecedented spate of joy and life in California threatening the completion of his book, that his thesis comes into its own. Having initially chastised Smither's blasé attitude to the misery and death that he deals with on a daily basis, Emmins is quick to realise that he, like Smither, is also 'praying for death, baby,' and thereby equally implicated in the death industry.

A masterful, compelling portrait of a man just doing his job.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Emmins Mops Up the Competition! This is by Far the Best Book on The Crime Scene Clean Up Topic!, September 7, 2009

By	James N Simpson (Gold Coast, QLD Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This is a sensational read, it's entertaining, informative and a book that once you start you won't be able to put down. Most non fiction authors, especially those dealing with this sort of subject matter provide very factual but text booky type reads. Alan Emmins has produced a book that reads just like your reading a great fiction novel. Emins comes across similar to say a Harlan Coben type character, an average guy who is suddenly in a situation (well a few) where he is out of his depth and comfort zone. If this was fiction he'd have someone trying to kill or something but other than that, Emmins is just like any well written everyday guy character.

Emmins is a British guy whose been living in Denmark for quite some time (long enough to start a young family there). Since Denmark has virtually no violent crime, and he has just worked out death is what sells freelance articles, he travels to San Francisco, California to tag along on a crime scene clean up with Neal Smither who owns Crime Scene Cleaners Inc. Emmins observes Neal's glee that the suicider left blood in the motel bathroom, make fun of the victim's lifestyle, offer him the victim's porn DVDS which were to be thrown out, sing morbid songs as he cleaned up and formed a judgement that he hoped Neal or someone like him wouldn't be cleaning up after his own demise one day. With the success of that magazine article Emmins decides a book is where the big money lies so contacts Neal to let him tag along for a few weeks this time.

As Emmins is taken to crime and or bloody death scene after crime and or bloody death scene, he realises he was totally wrong about Neal, as he learns more about Neal on and off the job, sees him interact with employees and his young family his attitude quickly changes until ultimately he is doing one of the very things he couldn't understand about Neal, hoping someone would die so he could get more material for his book.

This is not a how to clean up gruesome deaths 101 type textbook for the budding would be crime scene cleaner. It is a look at the death industry, particularly the immediate aftermath by friends and relatives through the eyes of those on the scenes. It is also a portrait of a successful businessman who overcame the odds and everyone telling him he had a stupid idea to create a million dollar company. There are a number of hilarious scenes both at crime scenes and away from them. Emmins also passes the time between deaths visiting a funeral home where coffins come with ridiculous 25 year guarantees, visits a cryonic storage facility, the San Francisco morgue (although this is one of Neal's clients) and follows the trial of one of the murder victims' killers whose crime scene he helped clean up (to be honest we could have done without these court scene chapters). Alan Emmins is one of those rare people who know how to tell a tale that has you riveted from the beginning. I'll definitely pick up other books he writes.

This 2008 published book is a reprint and updated version of the author's earlier 2004 book called Mop Men: California's Crime Scene Cleaners so if unavailable you may want to consider settling for that. Another great non fiction book that reads like fiction on the industry of death is Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach, I suggest you get them both!