Our fascination with crime has spawned libraries of books and years of TV programming. Val McDermid is a major player in the genre, with 28 novels and a successful television series to her credit. She has now written a guide to criminal forensics that is every bit as compelling as the best of the fictional genre. She combines science with the macabre, from the Great Fire of London to some of the most sensational trials of recent times, embracing disciplines such as pathology, entomology (particularly gruesome), anthropology and digital forensics. Her early years in journalism stand her in good stead, particularly when covering the Dublin Stardust disco fire of February 14th, 1981, which killed 48 young people and injured more than 100 more. Forensics has helped to send to jail, or to hang, many criminals who might otherwise have escaped justice, but it has also cleared significant numbers of people wrongly convicted.
