Cold Case Files

by Liz Porter

Cold case investigators scrape back paint in a renovated flat where a murder was committed twelve years earlier, and find a blood stain that leads them to a killer. Scientists extract DNA from crime-scene samples collected in 1973, and a 21st-century hunt for a triple murderer begins. A forensic dentist probes the mysterious death of an ancient Egyptian mummy. A long-forgotten palm print leads detectives to the real perpetrator of a murder for which an innocent man has already served 12 years' jail.

In this collection of fascinating cold cases from Australia, the UK and the US, award-winning writer Liz Porter shows how modern forensic science can unlock solutions for crimes and mysteries unsolved for decades, and, in some cases, centuries.

Praise for Liz Porter:

"...each of her stories reads like good crime fiction... a compulsive read" (The Sydney Morning Herald)

"A delightful and entertaining writer..." (Weekend Australian)

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction

286 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2011

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Liz Porter is a journalist who began her career in Hong Kong and then worked in Sydney, London and Stuttgart before returning to her home town of Melbourne, where she is a feature writer for the Sunday Age. She has won awards for her writing on legal issues and has published a novel. She lives with her partner, her daughter and the obligatory female-writer quota of two cats and is a hopelessly devoted fan of the St Kilda Football Club.

Reviews

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth a read for the diversity of cases presented, from dodgy art to sheets of Bach's music to a plethora of murders. A good basic rundown of current DNA technology as well as blood groups, fingerprints, ballistics and more.

[Teri Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s a lot to rummage through in Liz Porter’s follow-on to the successful ‘Written On The Skin’, and a lot of the rummaging takes place in cases that, for one reason or another (largely incompetence), remained unsolved at the time. But not all, because believe it or not people got convicted by a jury good and true, and one even got hanged - in the days pre-forensic science and especially DNA – some people just got unlucky (read fitted up).
The mind boggles really, and Porter’s easy-to-read CSI-esque style makes Cold Case Files a remarkably enjoyable read. Spanning cases from around the world that have been re-investigated due to the rapid advancement in identification technology, Cold Case Files leaves no hair unexamined and no swab un-swabbed in its detailing of the initial gruesomeness and (much) later solving. While it’s comforting to know that justice is eventually served, one is still left pondering how crime ever got solved at all other than by a blatant bungle by the perpetrator, like - just how a man could keep his decomposing spouse in a barrel in his carport for a decade or so – without any sign of detection.
Cold Case Files is a must read for all criminal forensic groupies, as well as for lot of budding crims too who’re looking for a way past the Venus fly trap that is modern day analysis, because if a flake of dandruff can convict a bank robber several years after the ‘perfect hoist’, what chance is there for anyone really, other than a newly arrived alien?

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

fantastic book about dna and how it has solved some cold cases at least 80 years old.

[Glenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting book.Ver much like watching the tv show. It was fascinating how crimes were solved in many different ways and also after many criminals believed they had got away withn it.