Forensics What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA, and More Tell Us about Crime

Val McDermid, a crime novelist, turns to the real science behind the plots she writes. Her research for those novels made her familiar with every branch of forensics. This non-fiction book sets out its history alongside real murders and the people who work to solve them.

The premise is that the dead can speak to the right listener. A body, a crime scene or the faintest human trace can show where a person came from, how they lived, how they died and who killed them. Forensic scientists read those messages to bring justice and to answer questions from the past.

McDermid works through interviews with leading practitioners, published research and her own original interviews. She also draws on firsthand experience at scenes alongside forensic scientists.

Along the way she learns how maggots taken from a corpse help fix the time of death. She also learns that a speck of DNA one millionth the size of a salt grain can be enough to convict a killer. Another chapter follows a team of young Argentine scientists, led by a maverick American anthropologist, who uncovered the victims of a genocide.

The book moves through war zones, fire scenes and autopsy suites, and follows forensics from its earliest beginnings to modern techniques. It suits general readers curious about how crimes are solved, and it deals frankly with both courage and cruelty.