“This book is the story of forensic science. The book provides a historical and technical frame for the interested lay reader … ”. So begins the 60‐plus‐page Introduction. This begins by exploring the subject, admits that it is not easy to define, and goes on to examine the influence of Sherlock Holmes and the effect of programmes like CSI on public perception and understanding (or should that be misunderstanding) of forensic science.
The Introduction then discusses the history of forensic science, starting with early works on identifying causes of death. Forensic science was almost entirely pathology until the industrial revolution provided the technology to make the science behind forensic techniques possible. As techniques for an area of forensic science have come to the fore the narrative of the Introduction picks up that field and discusses. The development of a reliable test for arsenic introduces toxicology. Fingerprints for identification soon became applied to identifying from fingerprints, and led to the controversy over whether fingerprint identification is a science or an art. This problem is more acute in document examination, which, when dealing with handwriting, can always be more confident in proving the negative argument that the document was not written by a specific person. Firearms are another interesting area. Linking bullets to a particular weapon, something the fictional characters do in minutes, involves days looking down a double microscope with the suspect bullet in one and the test bullet from the gun in the other. Careless, incompetent and dishonest forensic scientists get an airing. This is one of the best introductions to the history and practice of forensic science that I have read. I can recommend it to forensic scientists as well as lay people.
When this book arrived I was reading another book that I wanted to finish, so I started looking at it by picking out various entries. So, before I read the Introduction, I had come to the view that this was a book for lay enthusiasts. The longer articles, for example those on document examination and on firearms, give good overviews of the topic, mention important cases and give some history of the development of techniques. Most of the short articles deal with a specific point, examples are chain of custody and human leukocyte antigen, and are sufficiently informative to be useful. A few of these short articles are rather too brief. I am thinking specifically about the one on Psychology, which could have said something about fitness to plead, and diminished responsibility. There are a number of entries for specific cases, mostly American but not entirely: the Hitler Diaries and the Romanovs get a mention. As these accounts emphasis the forensic aspects of the case they are of wider than US interest. Important US cases such as Frye and Daubert are covered, and these are of wider international relevance, as they rule on the admissibility of evidence. The one place where the US bias comes out as an issue is the number of articles on marijuana, which reappears under a couple of its other names!
The articles are cross‐referenced. Most also list references to forensic science texts that will provide more practical details of investigative methods. There are also references to web sites, but as is appropriate given the intended audience, almost none to journals. A short bibliography at the end that includes web sites for forensic organizations is a further useful feature.
I believe this book achieves what it sets out to do, and would recommend it to lay enthusiasts, school and public libraries and universities and colleges that teach forensic science at an undergraduate level. I would recommend the Introduction to practising forensic scientist if they want an overview of the history of their subject. There is a three‐volume encyclopedia of forensic science aimed at the professional market (Seigel, 2000).
