Items related to Time of Death : The Story of Forensic Science and the...
Synopsis
Despite repeated claims and breakthroughs, forensic scientists are little better equipped to establish with any real degree of precision the exact time at which a victim of crime (or indeed anyone else, were there no witnesses) died. Over the last two centuries, scientists and detectives have attempted to rely on body temperature, evidence of rigor mortis and decomposition, the decay of the vitreous humor of the eye, the stages of digestion of the body's last meal, the progress of the insects that prey of dead bodies, all eventually without total conviction. Death is a gradual and highly variable business, dependent on a myriad of factors, and the expert witnesses at the trial of O J Simpson could be little more precise than the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. Gloriously written and ghoulishly fascinating, studded with the details of crucial cases, this is true crime at its most fascinating.
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About the Author
Jessica Snyder Sachs is a freelance health and science writer. Time of Death is her first book.
Review
We all know something about forensic science, if only through TV cop serials and high-profile murder trials. But what can this 'science' (which even after thousands of years is still far from perfect or conclusive) really tell us about the time and cause of someone's death? Jennifer Snyder Sachs has created a fascinating (if sometimes very gruesome) study of the subject. It's partly a history of what her subtitle calls 'The Search for Death's Stopwatch', and partly a comprehensive account of the current state of the art in forensics - an art which has made substantial recent progress through the use of entomology. It's well written, and incidentally a must-read for budding detective fiction writers and anyone with a curiosity about some of the body's darker secrets.
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- PublisherHeinemann
- Publication date2002
- ISBN 10 0434008990
- ISBN 13 9780434008995
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages288
- Rating
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Time Of Death
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Time of Death: The Story of Forensic Science and the Search for Death's Stopwatch
Published by
Heinemann Educational Books, 2002
ISBN 10: 0434008990
ISBN 13: 9780434008995
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Hardcover
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Time of Death : The True Story of the Search for Death's Stopwatch
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Time of Death: The True Story of the Search for Death's Stopwatch
Published by
William Heinemann, London, 2002
ISBN 10: 0434008990
ISBN 13: 9780434008995
Used
Hardcover
First Edition
Seller: Underground Books, ABAA, Carrollton, GA, U.S.A.
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Hardcover. Condition: Very good. Dust Jacket Condition: very good. First U.K. Edition, First Printing. First U.K. Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. First U.K. Edition with full number line indicating first printing. 8 3/4" X 5 1/2". x, 270pp. Mild shelf wear to unclipped dust jacket with light creasing and toning to edges. Black cloth over boards with spine lettered in gilt. Pages are clean and unmarked. Binding is firm and sound. ABOUT THIS BOOK: When detectives come upon a murder victim, there's one thing they want to know above all else: When did the victim die? The answer can narrow a group of suspects, make or break an alibi, even assign a name to an unidentified body. But outside the fictional world of murder mysteries, time-of-death determinations have remained infamously elusive, bedeviling criminal investigators throughout history. Armed with an array of high-tech devices and tests, the world's best forensic pathologists are doing their best to shift the balance, but as Jessica Snyder Sachs demonstrates so eloquently in Corpse, this is a case in which nature might just trump technology: Plants, chemicals, and insects found near the body are turning out to be the fiercest weapons in our crime-fighting arsenal. In this highly original book, Sachs accompanies an eccentric group of entomologists, anthropologists, biochemists, and botanists -- a new kind of biological "Mod Squad" -- on some of their grisliest, most intractable cases. She also takes us into the courtroom, where "post-O.J." forensic science as a whole is coming under fire and the new multidisciplinary art of forensic ecology is struggling to establish its credibility. Corpse is the fascinating story of the 2000year search to pinpoint time of death. It is also the terrible and beautiful story of what happens to our bodies when we die.(Publisher). Seller Inventory # 7183
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Time Of Death
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hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Good. Cover differs to stock image; actual book shown. Appears to have hardly been read. Seller Inventory # TRU29240507017
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