The Giant Book of Murder : Real Life Cases Cracked by Forensic Science

by Roger Wilkes (Editor)

(From Inside Flap)In 1752, a young woman named Mary Blandy put a mysterious white powder in her father's food. At her trial for the murder of the old man, a doctor gave astonishing that he believed this powder was arsenic poison - and he had performed experiments to prove it. As Mary walked up the steps to the gallows, a new science was the science of forensic detection.Gathered here are extraordinary cases from history and the present day, from the first use of fingerprints in a murder trial to the recent advances in genetics. Journalist and author Roger Wilkes gives a fascinating overview of famous cases covered by some of the best crime writers in history.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction

544 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Fishface · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is all kinds of wonderful. Many cases, from the tall to the small, interesting because of how they were solved, who done it, why they done it, or some other fascinating detail. Every story is well written and gripping. Highly recommended.

[Tristan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Giant Book of Murder fell under reading challenge No.1 - Read a book with more five-hundred pages, and while this book is certainly filled to the brim with interesting information regarding crime detection and even the inner workings of the justice system, it still suffers greatly from the same problems faced by other books of it's type.

This book is a collection of extracts from throughout history and around the world that relate to some of the grotesque and difficult crimes to ever occur. That being said, if you're looking for crimes from places other than the western hemisphere then you may be left wanting by the lack of global representation. However despite this small issue it does help to shed more light on some of the more infamous crimes committed by our fellow man, as well as help to uncover some of the more obscure crimes that may have gone unnoticed by some.

One problem that some have as they read this compendium is that the book is populated by the works of dozens upon dozens of different authors, all reporting from different time periods in different parts of the world. This leads to the issue of we don't get the same flow and style throughout this can make it difficult to keep focus and hold the reader's interest. Multiple that difficultly when you realize that more than once we are treated to the dry,slow, highly descriptive, no detail spared style of the Edwardian and Victorian authors and journalists. This did almost cause me to skip pages (and sometimes chapters) as once they've used five pages they've already told you everything you need to know.

Another slight problem I found whilst reading is that while this book claims to cover a number of crimes, and indeed it does, everything from murder, terrorism and kidnapping, it seems to revolve around two crime specialists and their involvement in the cases. Indeed I'd go as far to say that we learn more of the two scientists, their views on crimes, and their history with the justice system in the U.K and U.S.A than we learn of their methods of solving crimes. The scientific methods they employed to help prove the guilt or innocence of someone is touched upon, but don't pick up the book expecting a highly detailed report, or indeed any kind of report at all. There is the name of the method, some small description of how the technique is applied, and the results. You may also be disappointed (or interested) to note that more time is spent in the court deciding the fate of the suspect than in the labs finding out if it's worth keeping him/her there or not.

One detail I am grateful for is that this book, a giant book of murder, spares no details when it needs to inform of the severity of the crimes. We all know murder is murder, but a stabbing is greatly overshadow by an attacker ripping the flesh of his victims open with his teeth, and so this books relates these details in a mature manner that is informative, expertly avoiding the pitfalls of dramatizing the gore in order to keep interest and 'sparing the reader the messy details'.

However, despite the troubles it encounters as a compendium with different authors it still helps shed light on the endeavours of the justice system, both in the courts and in the police stations around the world, revealing to us their methods of detection, collection and analysis and how these results lead to the arrest and prosecution of criminals. It perhaps can also be credited for helping to expose a tiny glimpse of the inner workings of the criminal mind, from the bold and brassy, to those who try desperately to remain hidden. I would certainly recommended this book to anyone wishing to start their journey on their study of criminology, law or forensic science, but if you wish to specialize or get a more detailed study on the subjects then perhaps you are better off looking elsewhere.

[Nicole C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book years ago, as either a birthday or Christmas present, and I attempted to read it at the time, but it didn't hold my interest very long (as evidenced by the paper-clip-as-bookmark only several pages in) and sat on my bookshelf for ages.

As a whole, the book is uneven, as each tale is penned by a different author (some repeat later in the book, but it's still an issue of competing writing styles, from varying eras). Some stories are more interesting than others. Some spend more time at the trial than on the forensic evidence.

The best way to enjoy this book would be to dip in at intervals, rather than read cover to cover.

Speaking of the cover of this edition . . . if you're not up on your true crime, the image is of Elizabeth Short, also known as the Black Dahlia, who was savagely murdered and had her mutilated body posed in a vacant lot in Los Angeles in the late 1940s. This image was the sanitized version run by some newspapers at the time, as her body had been severed into pieces. The murder was never solved, so it irks me that the publisher would use this image for the cover of a book wherein such events were actually solved.