The Story That Will Not Die : Mystery: A new book on the demise of Elvis Presley claims that the singer died of an accidental drug overdose triggered by an allergic reaction, a conclusion that has already been disputed.

Heart attack?

Drug overdose?

Murder?

Suicide?

Almost 14 years after Elvis Presley was found face down on the bathroom floor of his Memphis mansion, the mystery surrounding his death continues.

The events leading up to that fatal morning of Aug. 16 have been recounted by at least 22 authors, many of whom have advanced their own theories explaining the 42-year-old singer’s death.

Some even go so far as to suggest that Presley, rock’s most celebrated star, faked his death and is still alive and well somewhere in the Midwest.

In the latest and most detailed account, two investigative reporters declare that the rock singer died of an accidental multiple drug overdose. The authors also propose for the first time that Presley’s death was triggered by an allergic reaction to a large quantity of codeine pills which the singer had mistakenly ingested.

The book, titled “The Death of Elvis, What Happened” and due Jan. 23 from Delacorte Press, is based on an 11-year study by James P. Cole, a veteran Memphis newspaper reporter, and his brother-in-law, Charles C. Thompson II, a CBS-TV “60 Minutes” producer.

“The reason we believe Elvis’ death was not a suicide is because he had been through other life-threatening drug episodes before,” Thompson said in a phone interview from his McLean, Va., home. “Elvis was a prescription-drug addict for years, but there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest he was suicidal.”

The authors got a big credibility boost last week when Dr. Eric Muirhead, one of the physicians who helped perform the autopsy, broke a 13-year silence and expressed his support for the drug overdose theory in a Memphis newspaper.

According to the authors, 14 identifiable drugs were present in Presley’s system the day he died at his Graceland mansion, including a volatile combination of prescribed uppers, downers, tranquilizers and narcotics.

But other key players who participated directly in the Presley autopsy proceedings dispute the codeine theory.

“While I do think that Elvis’ death was due to a multiplicity of drugs, there is absolutely no way to know whether or not excess amounts of codeine are what caused it,” Robert Cravey, chief toxicologist at Forensic Science Service in the Orange County, Calif., Sheriff Coroner’s Office, said last week.

Cravey conducted independent confirmation scans in 1977 on blood samples tested for Bio-Science, the Los Angeles-based toxicology lab hired to help complete the Presley autopsy. “Such theories are conceivable but merely guessing,” he said.

Dan Warlick, an investigator in Memphis’ Shelby County Medical Examiner’s Office who witnessed the entire autopsy, said that he was impressed with the body of evidence presented in the book, but that he still believes it is impossible to pinpoint the cause of Presley’s death “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“Just because a fellow runs stops signs every time he drives his car and then one day that same fellow crashes his car in the vicinity of a stop sign, that doesn’t prove that running a stop sign is what killed him,” Warlick said from Nashville. “The drug overdose theory is possible, but we’ll never really know.”

Dr. Jerry T. Francisco, the Shelby County medical examiner who pronounced Presley dead due to “heart arrhythmia” in 1977, was unavailable for comment.

But regardless of how many officials endorse the idea that Presley died of a drug overdose, Graceland communications director Todd Morgan affirmed last week tourists visiting the singer’s estate will continue to be told his death was due to “heart failure.”

“That was the official cause issued by the medical examiner at the time Elvis died and that’s what we believe,” Morgan said from Graceland. “Elvis has been in the grave for more than a decade now. Why can’t these guys just let him rest in peace?”

But the authors insist it was never their intention to hold Presley’s memory up to ridicule.

“This is no sleazy biography,” Cole said from Memphis. “The challenge for us was to uncover the lies shrouding the death of a very private celebrity. He just happened to be Elvis Presley.”

Cole and Thompson began writing their book soon after breaking the news about Presley’s drug problems on a 1979 “20/20” episode they worked on with talk-show host Geraldo Rivera. After the show, the reporters filed a lawsuit against the Shelby County medical examiner and district attorney to force them to declare the autopsy report a public document.

Although they lost the case, their efforts led to the indictment of Dr. George Nichopoulos, a Memphis physician who prescribed approximately 10,000 pills for Presley during the 20 months preceding his death. Nichopoulos was found guilty in 1980 of “oversubscribing” medication to a variety of patients, which cost him a three-month suspension of his license.

Combining information found in court records, police investigations and medical reports with interviews of paramedics, pathologists and toxicology experts, the authors paint a sobering portrait of the pop icon who achieved White House recognition for his anti-drug stance as a hard-core prescription-drug addict.

“In the end, Elvis was little more than a bloated junkie whose bowels were in such bad shape from drugs and poor diet that he had to sit on the pot for eight hours a day,” Thompson said. “It was truly pathetic.”

Graceland’s Morgan said he finds it “reprehensible” that after 13 years reporters continue to drag Presley’s name through the mud just to make a buck.

“I mean, if you were in Italy standing beneath the Sistine Chapel, swept away by the magic of Michelangelo’s artistry and some jerk walked up and elbowed you and said, ‘You know Michelangelo was a drunk,”’ Morgan said. “Would you really care?”

Still, Presley’s fans seem to care immensely, and why they do is no mystery to Leo Braudy, a USC Bing professor of English who specializes in the study of pop culture.

“When famous people die, it sets off a kind of tug of war between myth and reality,” Braudy said. “No matter how many new facts reporters dig up, their search for the truth will never satisfy the need of fans, which is the need for myth.”