politalX Politics Store - Dead Men Do Tell Tales: Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist

• The Casebook of Forensic Detection: How Science Solved 100 of the World's Most Baffling Crimes
• Time of Death: The Story of Forensic Science and the Search for Death's Stopwatch
• Cause of Death: Memoirs of a Home Office Pathologist
• The Forensic Casebook: The Science of Crime Scene Investigation
• Forensics for Dummies (For Dummies (Lifestyles Paperback))

William Maples lead a fascinating life - we learn about his experiences in Africa and as a young man at college. All too briefly, I must say.

The first part of this book teases the reader with promises of things to come. Breathlessly, we hear about suicides and murders... all in passing.

Then the author decides to take a more thorough approach. We get rather long chapters on identification of MIA servicemen, a conqusitador, the Tsar and this family, the Meek-Jennings case (which is hinted at all through the book - it must have been Maples' favourite case) and Zachary Taylor.

The problem is that the science of forensic anthropology is barely touched on. Maples' descriptions of his work make it seem like one man and a pair of tweezers instead of a science. I would like to more about the techniques involved.

Personally, I found the chapters on the famous cases (especially that of the Tsar) less interesting than his earlier chapters, which were composed of many examples. I'm sad to say that I didn't really care whether or not Zachary Taylor (a US president for about 10 mins, a hundred and fifty years ago) was poisoned.

All in all, this is a good book but it doesn't grip the reader in the same way that some other forensics books do. If you want a great book with the air of a mystery, read "What the Corpse Revealed" by Hugh Miller.

I learnt a lot of amazing facts about forensic anthropology (like the work of a pathologist but studying bones) which in itself is reason to buy this book. But these facts are interwoven in some fascinating cases which include accounts of skeletons of many famous people, Robert the Bruce, the Elephant Man, President Zachary Taylor and Tsar Nicholas II and his family among others. The cases not only involve the famous but ordinary people; suicides, murders, leprosy, arsenic poisoning, cremation plus loads of other weird cases.

There are two sections of photographs illustrating most of the cases in the book and it was extremely easy to read. Highly recommended to anyone who likes true crime, forensics or if you like novels of Kathy Reichs. If your interested in this sort of thing then a must buy!