The Forensic Casebook The Science of Crime Scene Investigation

An intrepid investigator crawls through miles of air conditioning ducts to capture the implicating fibers of a suspect's wool jacket . . . A forensic entomologist discovers insects in the grill of a car and nails down a drug dealer's precise geographical path . . . A gluttonous criminal's fingerprints are lifted from a chocolate truffle. . . .

Filled with these and many other intriguing true stories, and packed with black and white illustrations and photographs, The Forensic Casebook draws on interviews with police personnel and forensic scientists--including animal examiners, botanists, zoologists, firearms specialists, and autoposists--to uncover the vast and detailed underworkings of criminal investigation. Encyclopedic in scope, this riveting, authoritative book leaves no aspect of forensic science untouched, covering such fascinating topics as:

- Securing a crime scene
- Identifying blood splatter patterns
- Collecting fingerprints--and feet, lip, and ear prints
- Interpreting the stages of a body's decay
- Examining hair and fiber evidence
- Trace evidence from firearms and explosives
- "Lifting" DNA prints
- Computer crime and forensic photography
- Career paths in criminal science

Lucidly written and spiked with real crime stories, The Forensic Casebook exposes the nitty gritty that other books only touch upon. Here is a reference book as addictive as a page-turning novel of suspense.