Review - The Forensics Handbook

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Review - The Forensics Handbook - Pete Moore

Crime science is great fun on the TV or to read about in novels. We just love to watch CSI, and Bones, and Waking the Dead and Silent Witness and all the rest - it's detective fiction with a bit of science thrown in. And there's no doubt that forensic science is now much more high profile, both as a result of the advanced techniques which are now employed like DNA matching, and because of high profile trials where expert witness evidence has been called into question. So it's not surprising that there's an interest in finding out more about the real thing - and that's where Pete Moore's book comes in.

If you are looking for a brief introduction to forensic science, who does what, the different techniques used and so forth, this is an excellent book - unfortunately from our viewpoint, though, it's just not popular science. It's interesting to compare it with Ngaire Genge's The Forensic Casebook. That is a very readable and interesting book, but doesn't tell you enough about the science. The Forensics Handbook, on the other hand, gives a good description of what the scientific tools are, and of the structures and methods of police forensics, but doesn't provide any sort of narrative. It's a set of descriptions, more like a mini-encyclopedia of forensics work. Moore's book could also do with more on the science behind the tools. How do they work? How were they developed? We don't find out, and though you might argue that a typical reader of a book like this wouldn't be interested, you do need that sort of information (and a narrative structure) to make it popular science.

Where the book comes alive is when Moore uses real crimes as examples. The case files that are scattered through the book really transform the content, and work very well. But overall it feels as if something is lacking. You could almost see this as the skeleton of a popular science book - we just need Dr Moore to go back and fill in the meat of the subject.

Only in paperback.

Reviewed by Brian Clegg

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