What's that?
Criminalists analyze and interpret evidence from crime scenes; test for drugs; identify and compare fibers, hair, paint, and other materials; examine and compare tool marks, weapons, and ammunition; make casts; take pictures; prepare evidence and court exhibits and testify as expert witnesses. Sounds fun to me. And Ragle's been at it for more than 35 years, investigating and solving countless crimes. So he knows what he's talking about in this book.
Despite Ragles' formidable knowledge of forensics, he knows how to talk to an audience without being insulting. He explains what's going on in a straightforward style, defines terms that aren't familiar, and brings the reader right into the crime scene.
Every chapter starts with a short introduction to the topic (fingerprinting, for example) followed by a description of a crime scene and how that topic comes into play. The crime scene is followed by a detailed explanation of how the science works and what it's capable of.
There is a 16-page spread of black-and-white photos in the middle of the book, like many true crimes feature. But these are not for the queasy. Some look like the photos in my Crime Scene Investigation Handbook graphic. There are close-ups of multiple stab wounds and a detailed series of bullet wounds. These aren't in the book for fun, though. They help the reader understand what he's reading about. Really.
The layout of the book is logical and well-done. Ragle starts with an explanation of what forensics is, introduces the reader to the crime scene team, and then goes on to the different aspects of forensics: fingerprints, impressions and physical matches, firearms evidence, blood and other fluids, DNA, trace evidence such as fibers and hair, toxicology and drugs, and information provided by the coroner. He talks about his involvement in the OJ case (have you had enough of that yet?) as well as other less-famous crimes.
Perhaps he gets a little technical in the bloodspatter section, explaining the formula for finding the impact angle... next time you have a bloody nose, give this a try. It's the width of the drop divided by the length of the drop = the impact angle expressed as a sine function, in case you need to know. But the book's technical side rarely gets carried away and I'd recommend it for anyone with an interest in crime scenes and/or forensics.
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