Forensic Science - Sanjukta Mondal ***(*)

The forensic scientist's work forms a fascinating part of crime drama, with the pathologist playing a big supporting role in many police procedurals, while some shows such as the various CSI series, Silent Witness, Bones, Waking the Dead drive the action from the forensics. It's not surprising, then, that Sanjukta Mondal makes good use of this TV introduction to this science both to introduce real concepts, but also to point out where the fictional versions get it wrong.

It's also essential to cover, as she does, the reality that forensic work has itself slipped up. The book's introduction finishes with a reference to the key phrase 'every contact leaves a trace' becoming a guiding principle, but then tells us 'Does that mean forensic science is foolproof? The answer is no. It comes with its own set of pitfalls.' And these pitfalls will form a significant part of telling the story of the development of forensic science as a discipline.

Although TV shows feature reguarly, the first fictional focus is on written detective science with Poe's Dupin and particularly Sherlock Holmes getting a look in as an inspiration for the real thing. We then take more of a dive into that 'every contact' concept to see the ways such contacts can be left and detected - and how technology has changed our abilities over the years. From there, Mondal moves on to toxicology - here Game of Thrones gets a mention as a fictional starter, but Agatha Christie, with her regular use of poison in her mysteries, takes centre stage.

From there we move onto 'crimes of past and present' - obviously this spends a lot of time on cold cases, where the Bones TV show provides the fictional factor (the 'present' part reflects the way that even with warmer cases, skeletal remains can be important). After taking a dip into the world of art crime (where real life forger Tom Keating provides a better story than any fiction), the final parts of the book take in forensic limitations and some TV show debunking. It's always fun to point out failures in dramas, though I'm not sure the debunking the ideal way to pull together the book.

My star rating for this book is ***(*) - in terms of the interesting stories and background I think it rates four stars, but Mondal's writing style can be a little breathless for my taste and the overall structure of the book feels a little confused. There are also a few little slips - notably that quote in the introduction was from the French forensic pioneer Edmond Locard, who, we are told, coined it in the seventeenth century - Locard was born in the late 1800s, and appears to have coined the phrase in the early 20th century. I can only assume it's a typo as there's quite a lot on Locard later in the book, assigned to the correct period.

If you enjoy a forensic science TV show, though, this is the ideal book to fill in some details of where it all came from. 

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Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here