The Little Book of Forensics : 50 of the World's Most Infamous Criminal Cases Solved by Science

To take a crime from scene to court may involve several specialized branches of forensic science. Criminalistics specialists look at statistics, splash patterns, fingerprints and distribution of material at the scene; forensic chemistry deals with fires, explosives, glass, paint and soil analysis; toxicology looks at poisons and drug abuse; serology is the science of body fluids including blood, saliva and semen; the documents unit look at fakes and forgeries; and the computer branch investigate hacking and electronically detectable crimes.

This case-packed book shows you how each unit works through 50 carefully selected crime studies that describe how scientific methods have been used within the field of criminal investigation across the world.

David Owen has worked as a contributing science writer for the Observer, Sunday Times and Daily Telegraph, and is the author of numerous books on the subjects of military history, and forensic science and technology. These include Criminal Minds, an exploration of the art of crime profiling, and Hidden Evidence: Forty true crimes and how forensic science helped solve them.

David researched, wrote and jointly produced Dirty Tricks, a four-part radio series on the techniques of military deception, which was chosen by the British Imperial War Museum for its media military history archive. He has just completed a long-term research and writing project for the United States Naval institute