- Hardcover: 300 pages
- Publisher: PROMETHEUS BOOKS; 1 edition (April 1 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1573929859
- ISBN-13: 978-1573929851
- Product Dimensions: 24.2 x 15.7 x 2.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 599 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,902,516 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
In the tradition of Alphonse Bertillon and Lee's close friend and contemporary Michael Baden (author of the recent Dead Reckoning), the latest from renowned forensic criminologist Lee (Henry Lee's Crime Scene Handbook) takes readers through the steps of the investigative process of five homicide cases. Lee exposes the methodologies of crafty killers an air conditioner cranked up to disguise a victim's time of death, a shooting concealed as a suicide, a corpus delecti (literally, "the body of the crime") destroyed via a woodchipper in four of the five investigations; in the fifth, he revisits the mangled O.J. Simpson inquiry. Lee takes his responsibility to the scientific method seriously (which comes through in somewhat cold storytelling) and does not hesitate to place blame where he feels it's due. Justifying his work for the defense in the O.J. Simpson case, Lee criticizes the LAPD investigation as being compromised by bumbled procedure, cross-contamination and the mishandling of crucial blood evidence. Each of the cases considered here not only provides a rousing tale of forensic work, but also details the practical techniques such as bloodstain pattern analysis, crime scene photography and latent fingerprint detection through the use of alkyl-2-cyanoacrylate (Super Glue). If Lee's material has an element of the slapdash, it's probably for good reason after all, he's been a consultant to over 300 law enforcement agencies and is the editor of seven peer-reviewed journals. But attention to storytelling reveals the characters behind the cases, and supports Lee's assertion that "no one person... is responsible for the guilty being found out and successfully prosecuted." B&w photos throughout; color insert not seen by PW. (Apr.)Forecast: The true-crime crowd will consider this essential reading, and with a segment scheduled on ABC TV's 20/20, it may reach a broader audience.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Lee, a renowned forensic criminologist, reviews five domestic homicide cases that he has worked on, all of them examples of a male fatally assaulting a female to whom he was currently or had recently been married. Sketching out the scenarios surrounding each of the murders, he establishes the chronological flow of events both before and after the homicide, and he brings the personalities of murderer and victim into focus. Often, his detailed accounts of the murder scenes are horrific, bloody, frightening, and graphic. Lee separates the emotional response and focuses on the scientific skills required to ferret out information needed to solve the crimes. This sometimes leads to explanations of the equipment, procedures, chemicals, and so on needed to find and process data. For example, he details how to figure out the angle of the drip of blood drops in order to discover the angle of the blow to a body. A book for teens interested in working in forensics, police work, or true crime.
Pam Johnson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Pam Johnson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most helpful customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Old wine in old skins,
By "gg89" (Riverside, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Cracking Cases The Science Of Solving Crimes (Hardcover)
It's interesting that there are two alternate theories concerning how Dr. Lee might think that gravity does not exist in a vacuum put forward in the reviews below. The first is that it's the editor's fault and that Dr. Lee really said something else, and the second is that it is the judge's fault who reported the quote. His ability to keep straight what was said by Dr. Lee is suspect, and presumably he does not understand basic physics also. We need a good forensic scientist to get to the bottom of this mystery. The book is OK, but is a little dry, and in places does seem confused. Maybe this is attentional, as Dr. Lee has a lot going on with all of his media committments as well as solving crimes, and presumably teaching, so that he cannot focus all of his concentration on the task at hand and produce a coherent work. Also, a lot of the stuff has appeared in other places and hence the title of my review. For the reviewers out there who know all about Dr. Lee (they seem to be writing reviews here), what exactly are Dr. Lee's qualifications. Is he a medical doctor or a PhD, and if a PhD, in what? I know that it says on the book flap that he is faculty somewhere. Just curious.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Reading time well spent,
By lanoitan (United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Cracking Cases The Science Of Solving Crimes (Hardcover)
Despite the fact that this book 1) was boring at times due to the plethora of technical facts, 2) the poor editing, and 3) the lack of writing skill of the author, I enjoyed this book immensely and felt that I learned a great deal from reading it. I came away from it feeling glad that I took the time to read it. Contrary to how I feel after reading some books written in a highly polished manner, this book came across to me as very real (this ain't Agatha Christie), and the author came across as a diligent, intelligent, scientifically minded, fair, and appropriately humble man. What I learned: I got a glimmering of the huge amount of painstaking examination of detail involved in forensic pathology, I got an idea of how court procedure can hinder the bringing out of the truth, I got a glimpse of how easy it is to bungle the preservation of the evidence, and I got a picture of the number of dedicated people who work together trying to solve whodunits. I also got a view into the personalities of a few wife-murderers. The page 9 gaffe about chopsticks not falling to the floor in a vacuum was written by Judge Gill (was his memory of the story correct?) and the page 54 mention of those gigantic red blood cells should have been edited out. Two things that stood out in my mind were: the fact that the drops of blood on Nicole Simpson's back were washed away! (evidence which could have incontrovertibly established the innocence or guilt of O.J.) and the fact that the young girl's testimony that Edward Sherman had had a phony telephone conversation with his wife (attempting to make others think she was still alive) was thrown out at the trial. This book held my interest. I'm glad that we have people like Henry Lee, Michael Baden, and Cyril Wecht working so hard for all of us. And I find it fascinating to get a peek at them and how they do their work, in a down-to-earth, unglorified, objective way. That is what this book did for me.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Gravity and Vacuum again.,
By William S.V. Smurtleby (Red Bank High School, NJ) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Cracking Cases The Science Of Solving Crimes (Hardcover)
The case of the literary editor versus the emminent (Gggguuffaw!!) scientist.Of course the case in question was Havermeyer versus Dunbar, where Dunbar cracked Havermeyer over the head with the candlestick in "the vacuum of space." This was why the emminent scientist was expounding on "no gravity (in the vacuum of space)." The case of Havermeyer versus Dunbar was thrown out after the judge notified the eminent scientist that the gravitational constant, G, was first measured by Henry Cavendish in 1798, and found to be -6.67*10^(-11) Newton.meter^2.kg^(-2), to which the eminent scientist responded (inexplicably), "I didn't expect the bloody Spanish inquisition." Sometimes the shortcuts in editing are preferable to what the eminent scientist meant (but have less intrinsic comedic value). I hope this clears things up. Could a literary editor make this mistake, or just an eminent scientist?
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