Book info

• Title Traces
• Author Patricia Wiltshire
• Year 2019
• Genre Memoir

In Traces, Professor Patricia Wiltshire will take you on a journey through the fascinating edgeland where nature and crime are intertwined. She'll take you searching for bodies of loved ones - through woodlands, along hedgerows, field-edges, and through plantations - solving time since death, and disposal of remains, from ditches to living rooms. She will give you glimpses of her own history: her loves, her losses, and the narrow little valley in Wales where she first woke up to the wonders of the natural world. Pat will show you how her work with a microscope reveals tell-tale traces of the world around us, and how these have taken suspects of the darkest criminal activities to court. From flowers, fungi, tree trunks to car pedals, walking boots, carpets, and corpses' hair, Traces is a fascinating, unique, and utterly compelling book on life, death, and one's indelible link with nature.

Thoughts

I was in two minds about this to start with. It seems like such a niche subject, why did I even pick up this book? But gradually, I was drawn in and won over by the passion which Ms Wiltshire discusses her subject. The book is primarily about the little known and seemingly under-resourced subject of forensic investigation around pollens and minute traces in forests etc, but there are chapters looking back at her early life and how she ended up in this line of work - the difficulties and tragedies of a life, but the high points of successful cases as well. It ended up being a really interesting read!

Rating: 4 / 5