Crimebusting and Detection

Children's Literature - Marilyn Courtot

Forensic science covers a broad range of disciplines that help police solve crimes. The team may include pathologists who look at bodies, toxicologists to look within the body for poisons or other chemicals, forensic engineers who reconstruct a crime scene, fingerprint experts and weapons experts. What these people do and how they help solve crimes are explained in the hypothetical case presented. Blood that led to a DNA match, fingerprints, ballistics that can identify the gun that has fired a bullet, residue from firing a gun and much more help find the perpetrator of the crime. The text is chock-full of information and fact boxes contain information about identifying a person by their teeth marks and lip prints. Another box provides a rundown of facts about the body and what happens after death. For example it takes about 24 hours for a body to reach the temperature of its surroundings. Among the hi-tech crimes are forgery, counterfeiting and hacking into computers. Money, for example, has several built-in features to make it difficult to counterfeit—special printing, holograms, special inks and the like. Most kids will find the information in this book fascinating and even more so if they watch crime shows on TV. Colorful photographs appear on each page and text and images are often superimposed. Good readers should have no problem, but those who are not proficient may find the text and layout too difficult to handle. Bolded words are defined in the glossary, which is followed by a page of references to books and websites to learn more. There is an index. Part of the "Science Solves It" series. Reviewer: Marilyn Courtot