crime and criminals

This is the perfect starter book for anyone interested in forensics. It is organized by forensic discipline, then chronologically within each section. The author covers a number of famous cases, but has also included many more that are obscure, but equally fascinating. Each case is described ecomonically, but there is enough detail given to fully describe the case and the forensic techniques used to solve it. The writing is plain, precise, and jargon-free.

This book is also an excellent reference volume. The index and table of contents make it easy to find a specific case and I refer to this book often while reading other true crime or forensics book for names, dates, etc.

Anyone looking for a well-written, informative forensic science book need go no further than this book.

I feel that this book is a good introduction to the history of forensic detection and really gave me an appreciation the amazing things that various agencies & investigators can accomplish with little clues and/or little physical evidence.

I liked how the book was organized by sub-sections of disciplines (ie. Identifications of remains, ballistics, etc.)and how each case was broken out separately -- it allowed me to pick up the book whenever I could instead of having to read the whole thing in order to understand the overall point.

Being naturally curious and inquisitive, I found myself longing for more facts about some of the cases -- this is my only criticism of this book.

This is an ideal book for a student of forensic science or law, who may need help to find out various cases for their studies. It gives a guide to many different cases throughout the last century, with enough detail for the student to be able to do further research.

Each new section has a brief review of what the subject matter is eg Ballistics. Colin tells a little of what ballistics is about, including some history, then he writes a little about the subject of firearms and then what can happen when firearms are fired. Other subjects covered are Cause of Death, Disputed Documents, DNA Typing, Explosives and Fire, Fingerprinting, Forensic Anthropology, Odontology, Psychological Profiling, Identification of Remains, Serology, Time of Death, Toxicology, Trace Evidence and Voiceprints.

The appendix in the book is on Forensic Pioneers and Their Cases and here Colin lists 9 forensic scientists giving their year of birth and if dead, their year of death, also a brief outline of their career or some other pertinent detail, with a list of the significant cases which they worked on.

This book is well written and with enough detail to give those who are not involved in this field a very enjoyable read.