Discussion thread for the preface the book and chapters 1-4.
I bought my copy & I'm ready to go!
Ooh! I need to pick this one up at the library and get ready!
Copy ready and waiting on my bedside table!
Excellent! I have mine here too - it's been sitting in my stacks since it was published so I'm very excited to finally get to it!
I picked up my copy at the library yesterday although I refuse to let myself touch it before I finish Fortey's Life.
I was also disappointed by the lack of more in-depth science, but the book is better than Gulp since the author doesn't spend pages on fashion commentary and vulgar "humour". I consider this book to be a "salad book" rather than a "meat book". Light reading - nothing to strain the grey matter.
I think the order of the chapters is ok - it starts from the scene of the crime (which sometimes includes fires) and then what happens after. Of course a whole lot of these things happen simultaneously, which makes it hard to put chapters in order but it's mostly along the lines of "what happens when you find a crime scene", the various types of evidence gathered at the crime scene, some methods for solving the crime, and then the courtroom. Each chapter is a brief overview of the history and development of each technique and a few examples. The physical science is about as detailed as what get shown on the usual TV shows such as Bones or NCIS or CSI.
There are quite a lot of photographs in the book, so you will miss out on that if you have the audiobook.
I've finished chapter 1 and am a page or two into chapter 2. As I said on Tannat's status update, chapter 1 felt like a 60 minutes segment, or something from Dateline. I was immediately turned off by the sensationalist launch of the chapter and the melodrama of referring to the criminal as the man (paraphrasing) who made a widower out of Sharon's husband and left her 3 children motherless; that struck me as manipulative writing.
I was also irritated because she mentions a 'fingertip search' but doesn't explain what that is exactly and she refers to Frances Glessner Lee as an "unlikely pioneer in crime scene reading" but doesn't explain why she was an unlikely pioneer. Because she was a woman? An heiress? From Chicago?
But the chapter did get better for me towards the end, and while she uses the same story-telling device to open chapter 2 it feels much less sensationalistic, so I'm willing to stay open-minded. A lot of good books start out rough.
The first 4 chapters are a bit vague. The rest tend to have a bit more substance.
Ok, I just finished chapter 2 on arson - it was really good - MUCH better than chapter 1. But I"m stopping now because I don't want to read about bugs right before I go to bed - not so soon after the bug that laid me out flat with my current back issues. I'd never sleep. :D
Reply to post #13
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Wait, how did a bug lay you out?
Reply to post #14
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My latest round of back injury, last Sunday in the wee hours of the morning, happened because I was trying to kill a roach. I
loathe those damn things, so I might have put a bit more passion into the smushing than was sticky necessary.
Reply to post #16
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They are ALL satan's little minions as far as I'm concerned.