Trail of Blood: A Father, a Son and a Tell-Tale Crime Scene Investigation

*Starred Review* One bedroom, showing blood that could not be washed away, provides most of the forensic evidence and forms an indelible image of horror in this gripping true-crime suspense story. In 1991, Scott Dunn, a 24-year-old Lubbock, Texas, man, disappeared. No body was found. No weapon was found. But a photographic forensic test using the chemical Luminol found his blood all over the walls, ceiling, floor--even the doorknobs in his bedroom. Journalist Evans meshes the story of the young man's murder (involving admirably clear explanations of forensic science and legal hurdles) with the story of Dunn's father, James, whose love for his son propels him to push the investigation forward for the following six years. By placing the emotional weight of the book on the grieving father, a living victim, Evans gives the book an emotional wallop that many true-crime stories lack. From the moment James receives a strangely unemotional phone call from Scott's live-in girlfriend stating that Scott has disappeared, readers will be caught up in the father's deep foreboding. Even though the action takes place over a period of six years, with much of it marked by frustrations stemming from police inaction and outdated Texas law, this quest story never loses its suspense or its emotional hold on the reader. A brilliant and utterly gripping mix of crime-scene investigation and courtroom drama. Connie Fletcher
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