Forensics: The Anatomy of Crime

How much trust can you put in fingerprinting? How do insects help determine the time of a murder? How are aging portraits used to find political and military criminals? In this book, internationally acclaimed Scottish detective writer Val McDermid changes roles and undertakes her own investigation. Her characters are detective geniuses and ordinary police officers, great scientists and meticulous experts. High-profile cases that became the basis for movie stories, serial killers, victims of unhappy love or extreme sexual games, arsonists, child molesters, cheaters, marriage swindlers . . . And the search for the truth. In front of us unfolds the long history of forensic science - from the forensic medicine of ancient China to DNA profiling - with its mistakes and victories, when after many years to find the culprit and give freedom to the innocently convicted.