My revinew of Dummies Guide to Forensics at The Star

For wannabe crime-fiction writers, this book is not a bad place to start, though of course you will need to get another book for more detailed layering of scenes. (:

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Lifebookshelf

Friday April 28, 2006

Crime-scene nuggets

Review by CLARISSA LEE

Forensics for Dummies

Author: D.P. Lyle

Publisher: Hungry Minds Inc, 384 pages,

(ISBN: O-76455-580-4)



And it seems that in every episode, entire teams of forensic scientists (be they investigators, pathologists, toxicologists or whatever sub-fields they are in within the forensic purview) can be devoted to, at the most, three cases, with each episode spanning days and sometimes a week (though seldom longer).

What about the hundreds, if not thousands, of on-going cases that require the attention of a very small team of investigators? What’s more, the TV investigators don’t seem to face any budget constraints that limit their investigations in anyway. Finally, despite the long work hours and ennui due to the seeming lack of clues, they still look beautiful and impeccable.

In this plain-speaking introductory guide to forensic science, D.P. Lyle dispels these notions by giving the readers enough information for them to understand each of the individual fields covered under forensics, without overwhelming them with unnecessary detail.

In the last three chapters, the author provides a summary of 10 famous cases that had utilised (or misused) forensic science, with details on the dead ends and problems faced by investigators, and how Hollywood gets the death scenes wrong in movies and TV series.

Finally, there is information on various careers in forensics, including brief job descriptions, educational requirements and job experience.

Each chapter is written in a way that allows easy cross-referencing should the reader require a refresher on an earlier topic.

The first gives an overview of the world of forensics, and outlines its basic working principles and an introduction to what’s to come in the rest of the book.

Chapter Two shows the forensic investigators at work: it lists their duties and shows how they complement each other. The next two chapters go into how criminal investigators perform their crime-scene duties as well as criminal profiling.

Chapters five to seven give the micro-picture of all the work that is involved in the gathering of evidence and materials from the crime scene as well as crime-scene reconstruction, while nine to 13 provide more intimate details related to the investigation of bodies or body parts.

While Lyle spares us the grisly details (and visuals) and most of the jargon, the clinical details involved in processing a dead body are not exactly bedtime reading. Lyle has organised the book in such a way that those who aren’t too keen on the various etchings and markings, or the number of lands or grooves that a particular firearm possesses may skip that particular section, with no break to the flow of the book.

Likewise, readers who are intrigued by the workings of the criminal mind or the laboratory sciences involved in each of the different fields of forensics can sieve through the details and see how they correlate with one another.

Whether you are a big CSI fan or merely have a casual interest in the behind-the-scenes technicalities, an amateur sleuth, or are considering a career in forensics, this book will do it for you.