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For the November 2016 group read, we had a tie: Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA and More Tell Us About Crime and NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity. You can read either or both books, as you wish.

If you read Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA and More Tell Us About Crime, please use this thread to post questions, comments, and reviews, at any time.

I recently finished this one and thought it was a solid read. It was nice to see what forensics looks like in the UK and I wasn't previously familiar with many of the cases discussed. I liked the way the author wove together science and story, but there were times I wanted a bit more delineation between the two because the subject hopping could be a bit jarring. Overall, though, pretty good.

I have been listening to this book as an audiobook. It is excellent! Truly fascinating, every bit of it. Occasionally a bit gruesome. I will be sorry when finished with it. I appreciate how the author has organized the chapters, each chapter describing the history of a particular aspect of forensics. I highly recommend this book!

I read it and I agree it is a really good with researched cases for each chapter that is being focused on. I always thought that I might want to go into this field but after reading this I have concluded I just do not have the stomach for it. It truly takes a special kind of person.

I really liked it, too. I'll have to listen to one of her mysteries. I was really shocked how some sciences lagged, especially fingerprinting. I thought it was far more of a science than it really is, an impression left by so many TV shows & books. In reality, partials & distortions make it more of an art in which the expert's prejudices can tip the scales.

I've read other books that covered some of these subjects better. Fire scene investigation was pretty basic. The Devil & Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness & Obsession got into the subject better, although that was just one of a half dozen articles in the book.

Anthropology was another. Dead Men Do Tell Tales: The Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist, Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner, & Death's Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales are each about just that. Even Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers might have covered this better.

Digital forensics was probably her worst section. She hit some of the high points, but I noticed a couple of things that I thought were misleading. (Win95 opening up the WWW?) Well, it's a complicated subject & at least she didn't bog down.

That looks as if I found a lot of faults with the book, but I really didn't. It's a huge topic & she did a very good job covering so much so well. She kept it interesting the entire time, too. I gave it a 5 star review here:
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I love Val McDermid and this was a good solid book. I am in the United States so some of the data was different for us, still I enjoyed it. What few people know about Val is how funny she is. She shows up on BBC Radio Scotland all the time. (I am addicted to BBC Radio!)