Silent Witnesses: The Often Gruesome but Always Fascinating History of Forensic Science, by Nigel McCrery

Synopsis: A crime scene. A murder. A mystery.

The most important person on the scene? The forensic scientist. And yet the intricate details of their work remains a mystery to most of us.

Silent Witnesses looks at the history of forensic science over the last two centuries, during which time a combination of remarkable intuition, painstaking observation and leaps in scientific knowledge have developed this fascinating branch of detection. Throwing open the casebook, it introduces us to such luminaries as ‘The Wizard of Berkeley’ Edward Heinrich, who is credited with having solved over 2000 crimes, and Alphonse Bertillon, the French scientist whose guiding principle ‘no two individuals share the same characteristics’ became the core of identification. Along the way, it takes us to India and Australia, Columbia and China, Russia, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. And it proves that, in order to solve ever more complicated cases, science must always stay one step ahead of the killer.

Published: August 2013 | ISBN: 978-1613730027

Mini-bio: Nigel McCrery was a police officer in the British Murder Squad, working on several murder inquiries, before attending Cambridge University. He is the author of Still Waters and of many other novels, including the Dr. Samantha Ryan mysteries, and the creator of the television drama series Silent Witness and Old Dog, New Tricks. He lives in London. – Penguin Random House

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Paperback Edition: Silent Witnesses: The Often Gruesome but Always Fascinating History of Forensic Science
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