Left Coast Justin's Reviews > Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA and More Tell Us About Crime

Val McDermid is a highly-regarded crime fiction sriter whose novels I have never read. Here, she pays homage to the folks who worked out the various technologies used to catch bad guys. It's a nice gesture -- a lot of what she's learned here has made it into her novels, in one form or another.

She may be a great novelist, but as a writer of nonfiction, I found this rather uninspired. If you want a solid understanding of the basics of forensic evidence gathering, interpretation, admissability and pitfalls, this is a great place to start. If you want to be on the edge of your chair, or laughing yourself silly, or moved to tears, look elsewhere. This is a more-or-less straightforward recitation of facts. Lots of them. This is reflected in my rating, which means: It was pretty much what I expected, and I enjoyed reading it and learned a lot.

I've been spoiled by reading some great science writers like James Shreeve, John McPhee and Sara Everts. It's apparently quite a difficult thing to do well.