Silent Witnesses

Although not quite as strong as similar books on the topic, Silent Witnesses was a thorough, decently engaging pop history. Because it's an overview of all the forensic techniques, there isn't really enough time for any particular biography or topic to take center stage and while that was a flaw, in that it meant the story lacked an over-arching narrative, it also gave the author a chance to take a broad scope and put all the pieces together. I would have liked the book to have gone into more depth–it gave one chapter each to different forensic topics, such as ballistics, fingerprinting, blood, and DNA, with illustrative case examples, but every chapter left me wanting to know more. Still, if all you know about forensic science is from CSI, Silent Witnesses is not a bad introduction to the history of the topic, if a little overtly focused on British criminal history at times (which, I suppose can be forgiven, as the author is a British forensic scientist.)