McDermid has not lost her early journalistic genius for telling a good story plainly
- Ian Finlayson, Times
... she dissects the history of forensics through gripping stories of real-life crime.
New Statesman
Every bit as compelling as the best of the fictional genre
Irish Times
Fascinating history of forensic science .... McDermid provides a grimly absorbing account of crime and it's detection
- Ian Thompson, Observer
... the science of forensics has come a long way, as Val McDermid relates in this fascinating study. McDermid, best known for her gritty psychological thrillers, has interviewed a wide range (a morgue? a graveyard?) of forensic scientists and has revisited some of the most gruesome true life mysteries to piece together a gripping history of the anatomy of crime. Each of the chapters - which examine themes such as fire scene investigation, toxicology, fingerprinting, DNA and blood splatter and facial reconstruction - contains a wealth of surprising information
- Andrew Wilson, Independent
Praise for Val McDermid:
'McDermid has the ruthless psychological scalpel that forms part of the equipment of all good novelists, whatever their genre. And, fortunately for us, she knows just how to use it.
Guardian
The sheer brio of McDermid's writing produces that increasingly rare thing, a genuine page-turner that doesn't insult its readers' intelligence.
Independent
To write one brilliant book is hard. To write 25 is a miracle. That is what Val McDermid has achieved over the course of her career and it's why she is a much-loved legend in the literary world.
Sunday Express