It is the first ever biography of Dr. Thomas Noguchi, the Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner of the County of Los Angeles from 1967 to 1982. Throughout his illustrious career, Dr. Noguchi conducted the official autopsies of some of the most high-profile personalities of his time. His elaborate press conferences, which often generated more controversy than they did answers, catapulted him into the public eye.

Noguchi was also the inspiration for the popular 1970s/80s television drama Quincy, M.E., starring Jack Klugman. Featuring never-before-published details about Noguchi's most controversial cases, L.A. Coroner is a mesmerizing, meticulously researched true crime biography, set against the backdrop of the racial politics of the 1960s and 1970s and Hollywood celebrity culture.

Barbara Butcher was early in her recovery from alcoholism when she found an unexpected lifeline: a job at the Medical Examiner's Office in New York City. The second woman ever hired for the role of Death Investigator in Manhattan, she was the first to last more than three months. The work was gritty, demanding, morbid, and sometimes dangerous--and she loved it.

Butcher (yes, that's her real name, and she has heard all the jokes) spent day in and day out investigating double homicides, gruesome suicides, and most heartbreaking of all, underage rape victims who had also been murdered. In What the Dead Know, she writes with the kind of New York attitude and bravado you might expect from decades in the field, investigating more than 5,500 death scenes, 680 of which were homicides. In the opening chapter, she describes how just from sheer luck of having her arm in a cast, she avoided a boobytrapped suicide. Later in her career, she describes working the nation's largest mass murder, the attack on 9/11, where she and her colleagues initially relied on family members' descriptions to help distinguish among the 21,900 body parts of the victims.

This is the breathtakingly honest, compassionate, and raw (Patricia Cornwell), completely unputdownable (Adriana Trigiani, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Left Undone) real-life story of a woman who, in dealing with death every day, learned surprising lessons about life--and how some of those lessons saved her from becoming a statistic herself. Fans of Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwell, and true crime won't be able to put this down.

The fascinating story of the forgotten woman who pioneered forensic science

As America ramps up efforts toward victory in World War II, Frances Glessner Lee stands at the front of a wood-paneled classroom within Harvard Medical School and addresses the young men attending her seminar on the developing field of forensic science. A grandmother without a college degree, Lee may appear better suited for a life of knitting than of investigation of unexpected death. Her colleagues and students, however, know her to be an extremely intelligent and exacting researcher and teacher--the perfect candidate, despite her gender, to push the scientific investigation of unexpected death out of the dark confines of centuries-old techniques and into the light of the modern day.

Lee's decades-long obsession with advancing the discipline of forensic science was a battle from the very beginning. In a time when many prestigious medical schools were closed to female students and young women were discouraged from entering any kind of scientific profession, Lee used her powerful social skills, family wealth, and uncompromising dedication to revolutionize a field that was usually political, often corrupt, and always deeply rooted in the primal human fear of death.

18 Tiny Deaths transports the reader back in time and tells the story of how one woman, who should never have even been allowed into the classrooms she ended up teaching in, changed the face of science forever.

*FINALIST: Book of the Year for the 2024 CrimeCon CLUE Awards*

*WINNER: Gold Award for Best New Voice, Nonfiction, of the 2024 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award*

*WINNER: Silver Award, True Crime, of the 2023 IPPY Book Awards*

Dogged determination and DNA leads Detective Lindsey Wade and her team to the truth behind a thirty-two-year old cold case.

In 1986, a young girl in Tacoma, Washington, Jennifer Bastian, went out for a bike ride in a local park and never came home. Later her body was found, mutilated and lifeless, but the case went cold, and Jennifer's killer was free.

The senseless killing of an innocent girl left an indelible black cloud over Tacoma for three decades and was seared into the memory of young Lindsey Wade, also from Tacoma, who went on to become the detective who would crack the case.

Horrifying crimes against women and girls motivated Wade's twenty-one-year law enforcement career and ignited her relentless pursuit of justice for victims.

Journey with Detective Wade as she investigates shocking sex crimes and homicides in the Tacoma area, where she has been crucial in bringing new DNA evidence into each cold case. From serial rapists to cold-blooded killers, Wade never backs down from the challenges these investigations present--even adding Ted Bundy's DNA to the national database. At the heart of every lead and DNA test throughout the book, Lindsey's desire to find Jennifer Bastian's murderer never relents.

Discover the science of forensics through Agatha Christie's novels in the ultimate true crime investigation

Agatha Christie is the bestselling novelist of all time, and nearly every story she ever wrote involves one--or, more commonly, several--dead bodies. And the cause of death, the motives behind violent crimes, the clues that inevitably are left behind, and the people who put the pieces together to solve the mystery invite the reader to analyze the evidence and race to find the answer before the detective does. Nearly every step of the way, Christie outlines the nuts and bolts of early 20th-century crime detection, relying on physical evidence to tell the real story behind the facades humans erect to escape detection.

Christie wouldn't have talked of forensics as it is understood today--most of her work predates the modern developments of forensics science--but in each tale she harnesses the power of human observation, ingenuity, and scientific developments of the era. A fascinating, science-based deep dive, The Science of Murder examines the use of fingerprints, firearms, handwriting, blood spatter analysis, toxicology, and more in Christie's beloved works.

What readers are saying:

Highly entertaining with many fascinating snippets of insider information about real life criminal cases. This is a must for Christie fans.

Thoroughly researched and a delight to read!

A wealth of information and knowledge to help give an insight to the golden age of crime fiction.

Absolutely brilliant book that looks at how Agatha Christie made use of developments in forensic science in her novels and upgraded her understanding over time.

Agatha Christie is one of my favorite authors, unparalleled in her clever plots and twisting tales. She was also a forensic expert, weaving into her novels human observation, ingenuity and genuine science of the era. This book illuminates all of Agatha's incredible knowledge, showing how she stayed at the cutting edge of forensic knowledge, as seen through her much loved characters.

Lisa Bailey never considered a career working in death until she saw the FBI job posting for a forensic artist. The idea of using her artistic skill to help victims of crime was too compelling to pass up.

Soon she was documenting crime scenes, photographing charred corpses, and digitally retouching the disembodied heads of suicide bombers. But it was facial approximation--sculpting a face from the remnants of an unidentified victim's skull--that intrigued her the most. Bailey knew that if she could capture that person's likeness in clay, she just might help them be identified, and that might help law enforcement track down their killer.

Bailey worked on hundreds of cases and grew to become a subject matter expert in the field. It was the most challenging and fulfilling work she could have imagined, and she never thought of leaving. But her life changed when she became the target of sexual discrimination and harassment. She was stunned when FBI management protected the abusers and retaliated with threats, slander, and an arsenal of lawyers. Trapped in an increasingly hostile work environment, and infuriated at the hypocrisy of the FBI's tactics, Bailey decided to fight back.

Clay and Bones is a memoir with a mission, and a fascinating exploration into the surreal and satisfying work of a forensic artist.

*FINALIST: Book of the Year for the 2024 CrimeCon CLUE Awards*

*WINNER: Gold Award for Best New Voice, Nonfiction, of the 2024 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award*

*WINNER: Silver Award, True Crime, of the 2023 IPPY Book Awards*

Dogged determination and DNA leads Detective Lindsey Wade and her team to the truth behind a thirty-two-year old cold case.

In 1986, a young girl in Tacoma, Washington, Jennifer Bastian, went out for a bike ride in a local park and never came home. Later her body was found, mutilated and lifeless, but the case went cold, and Jennifer's killer was free.

The senseless killing of an innocent girl left an indelible black cloud over Tacoma for three decades and was seared into the memory of young Lindsey Wade, also from Tacoma, who went on to become the detective who would crack the case.

Horrifying crimes against women and girls motivated Wade's twenty-one-year law enforcement career and ignited her relentless pursuit of justice for victims.

Journey with Detective Wade as she investigates shocking sex crimes and homicides in the Tacoma area, where she has been crucial in bringing new DNA evidence into each cold case. From serial rapists to cold-blooded killers, Wade never backs down from the challenges these investigations present--even adding Ted Bundy's DNA to the national database. At the heart of every lead and DNA test throughout the book, Lindsey's desire to find Jennifer Bastian's murderer never relents.

Berkeley, California, 1933. In a lab filled with curiosities--beakers, microscopes, Bunsen burners, and hundreds upon hundreds of books--sat an investigator who would go on to crack at least two thousand cases in his forty-year career. Known as the American Sherlock Holmes, Edward Oscar Heinrich was one of America's greatest--and first--forensic scientists, with an uncanny knack for finding clues, establishing evidence, and deducing answers with a skill that seemed almost supernatural.

Heinrich was one of the nation's first expert witnesses, working in a time when the turmoil of Prohibition led to sensationalized crime reporting and only a small, systematic study of evidence. However with his brilliance, and commanding presence in both the courtroom and at crime scenes, Heinrich spearheaded the invention of a myriad of new forensic tools that police still use today, including blood spatter analysis, ballistics, lie-detector tests, and the use of fingerprints as courtroom evidence. His work, though not without its serious--some would say fatal--flaws, changed the course of American criminal investigation.

Based on years of research and thousands of never-before-published primary source materials, American Sherlock captures the life of the man who pioneered the science our legal system now relies upon--as well as the limits of those techniques and the very human experts who wield them.

Burn Boston Burn-The Largest Arson Case in the History of the Country is an astounding true crime narration. A conspiracy of 9 men, including 3 Boston cops and a Boston firefighter, burned Boston and surrounding communities in the early 1980s due to tax-cutting measures that caused layoffs of hundreds of police and firefighters. Over 2 years, these fire buffs turned arsonists, torched 264 buildings, causing millions of dollars in damages and hundreds of injuries. The city was ablaze with nightly fires, sirens wailing through the streets and people too afraid to sleep. This book interweaves the activities of the arsonists with those of the investigators, the firefighters and the citizens of the area. Readers will shake their heads in disbelief at the brazen and wanton actions of these political terrorists.

The author, now retired ATF Special Agent Wayne Miller, lived this case for three years. A TV cameraman helped break the case when one of the cops waved his gun in the air at a massive fire as if he were at a rodeo. The case included a stolen police car dumped in Boston Harbor, a threat letter consisting of cut-out letters and plans to murder witnesses.

After the Boston Police Officer/arsonist became a witness, ATF utilized 17 undercover contacts to perfect a Federal case. Agent Miller spent innumerable hours with those perpetrators who became Government witnesses. An arsonist's journal provided the basis for chilling insights into their words, actions, and thoughts. Mr. Miller now has regular contact with that arsonist who has provided additional information in support of the book.

Every firefighter who has heard of the story wants to read about it. Also, anyone interested in true crime, investigative procedures, the inner workings of a criminal conspiracy and fires would have strong interests in this book. The case was covered by national media in the early to mid-1980s.

Lisa Bailey never considered a career working in death until she saw the FBI job posting for a forensic artist. The idea of using her artistic skill to help victims of crime was too compelling to pass up.

Soon she was documenting crime scenes, photographing charred corpses, and digitally retouching the disembodied heads of suicide bombers. But it was facial approximation--sculpting a face from the remnants of an unidentified victim's skull--that intrigued her the most. Bailey knew that if she could capture that person's likeness in clay, she just might help them be identified, and that might help law enforcement track down their killer.

Bailey worked on hundreds of cases and grew to become a subject matter expert in the field. It was the most challenging and fulfilling work she could have imagined, and she never thought of leaving. But her life changed when she became the target of sexual discrimination and harassment. She was stunned when FBI management protected the abusers and retaliated with threats, slander, and an arsenal of lawyers. Trapped in an increasingly hostile work environment, and infuriated at the hypocrisy of the FBI's tactics, Bailey decided to fight back.

Clay and Bones is a memoir with a mission, and a fascinating exploration into the surreal and satisfying work of a forensic artist.

A relentless detective and a civilian genealogist solve a haunting cold case--and launch a crime-fighting revolution that tests the fragile line between justice and privacy.

In November 1987, a young couple from the idyllic suburbs of Vancouver Island on an overnight trip to Seattle vanished without a trace. A week later, the bodies of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and her boyfriend Jay Cook were found in rural Washington. It was a brutal crime, and it was the perfect crime: With few clues and no witnesses in the vast and foreboding Olympic Peninsula, an international manhunt turned up empty, and the sensational case that shocked the Pacific Northwest gradually slipped from the headlines.

In deep-freeze, long-term storage, biological evidence from the crime sat waiting, as Detective Jim Scharf poured over old case files looking for clues his predecessors missed. Meanwhile, 1,200 miles away in California, CeCe Moore began her lifelong fascination with genetic genealogy, a powerful forensic tool that emerged not from the crime lab, but through the wildly popular home DNA ancestry tests purchased by more than 40 million Americans. When Scharf decided to send the cold case's decades-old DNA to Parabon NanoLabs, he hoped he would finally bring closure to the Van Cuylenborg and Cook families. He didn't know that he and Moore would make history.

Genetic genealogy, long the province of family tree hobbyists and adoptees seeking their birth families, has made headlines as a cold case solution machine, capable of exposing the darkest secrets of seemingly upstanding citizens. In the hands of a tenacious detective like Scharf, genetic genealogy has solved one baffling killing after another. But as this crime-fighting technique spreads, its sheer power has sparked a national debate: Can we use DNA to catch the murderers among us, yet still protect our last shred of privacy in the digital age--the right to the very blueprint of who we are?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire has dedicated her life solving over 300 real criminal cases across the UK. Learn of her shocking discoveries in this one-of-a-kind true crime forensic ecology book.

For true crime enthusiasts. This book will captivate true crime lovers everywhere. Professor Wiltshire has used her extensive background in forensic ecology to find the answers to some of the most harrowing cases in true crime history. From unraveling true crime murder cases to finding hidden remains, Professor Wiltshire has solved the unsolvable time and time again.

For forensic science enthusiasts. As a forensic scientist, Professor Wiltshire provides a unique perspective to crime scene investigation and the different investigative methodologies used to solve the toughest cases. Law enforcement personnel from all types of professions will marvel at the stories shared in The Natural History of Crime.

Inside, you'll find:

• Real crime stories, exposed by a groundbreaking forensics expert.
• A behind-the-scenes view of what it takes to solve the most unsolvable crimes.
• A deep understanding of the connection between the natural world and the search for justice.

If you liked The Most Bizarre True Crime Stories Ever Told, Behold the Monster, or The Best New True Crime Stories, you'll love The Natural History of Crime.

This is not CSI. What you encounter as a true bomb detective--or Bomb Doctor, as some in the FBI call me--are fields of twisted metal containing soot-covered fragments intermingled with human remains. You have carnage and chaos. As you wade into that sea of wailing sirens and screaming survivors awash with the stench of diesel fuel and decaying bodies, your job is to ferret out forensic clues in a type of macabre scavenger hunt to ultimately reconstruct the scene and the explosive device and determine what happened and what the bomb looked like before it was torn asunder.

None of this happens overnight. Nor does it happen in a timeframe that can be neatly packaged in an hour-long made-for-TV drama. The scavenger hunt can take months--or, in the case of the infamous Collar Bomber, seven painstaking years. The work is worth every second and every horrific image that etches itself into your brain because it helps prevent new horrors. Not all, obviously. We are not superheroes. But unlike shooters, who often just snap or seem to act out in random ways, bombers almost always have a story--one that follows an arc.

In The Bomb Doctor, my goal is to explain that arc, explode myths, reconstruct reality, and build an understanding of the reason and means behind the mayhem, as well as pull back the curtain on the investigative process that brings bombers to justice.

Many are often fascinated by the stories I have collected during my career as an ER nurse. I spent 16 years in the ER and specialized in forensic nursing for most of that time. The memories and experiences are heavy and some continue to torment me. Countless times, people ask me What is the worst thing you've seen? I don't have an answer for that. You can scrape someone off the highway and bring them to me. I will try to save their life. I do not lay awake at night and think about horrible injuries or how their lives will change. What haunts me is what humans do to each other. I don't mean gunshot wounds or stabbings either. I mean taking your bare hands and physically hurting others in ways that many of us wouldn't be able to imagine. It is mind-blowing to me that so many are shocked by these stories. Why doesn't the general public have any clue that these things are happening in their own backyard? Why isn't local violent crime reported on your local news? The silence surrounding these crimes screams inside of me, and sometimes that's all I can hear.

Incendiary Devices: Investigation and Analysis is the first book on this subject written by an actual arson investigator and profiler with decades of experience.

Historically, there have been numerous myths and Hollywood exaggerations regarding the entire world of arson investigation. Chief among these myths is the notion that all arsonists are deeply intelligent, sinister plotters who sit around all day scheming and creating exotic incendiary devices. While there is the odd case of this exact type of offender, the bulk of the arsonists in the world are fairly mundane criminals not unlike a typical burglar.

Nordskog combined his twenty-plus years as an arson/bomb investigator in Los Angeles with an intense three year study of actual incendiary devices found at arson events. He has separated the realities of his world from the myths of Hollywood and firehouse war stories. He has compiled a list of nearly 3,500 actual devices used in true cases and has provided comprehensive analysis of each item.

Using his unique skills as a profiler of arson events, Nordskog has compared the incendiary devices in the book to the various sub-types of arson offenders. The entire purpose of this document is to use this unique information to identify, apprehend, classify and prosecute arsonists through the exploitation of their incendiary devices.

Nordskog laboriously dredged up the historical use of incendiary devices in military actions, and followed the use of those items into the murky world of anarchists, Irish terrorists, animal rights movement extremists, anti-abortion fire bombers, and modern international terrorists.

Nordskog explains the concept of learned behavior as incendiary device use expanded into the world of wild land arsonists, serial arsonists, and firefighter arsonists. He breaks down the mystery of Signature vs M.O. in device analysis and describes step by step how to exploit and analyze a device and its deployment by investigators, scientists, techs, and crime analysts.

This book is a must read for any prosecutors, profilers, investigators, and crime scene specialists operating within the world of arson and bomb investigation.

The details of this study and book have been culled from underground manuals, government documents, military manuals, and the case histories of thousands of arson attacks. The finished book was vetted and underwent technical review by several of the most experienced bomb and arson experts in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The last time I saw my friend Jack, we were in the lobby of the hospital where we both worked. He was wearing his familiar faded green scrubs and a lab jacket. He went through the door to the second floor. I never saw him again. Jack was murdered in his home later that night.

This book presents the author's personal struggles with the unsolved murder of her friend, and her efforts to make sense of it. The author explores her recollections, experiences and memories utilizing newspaper reports, investigation notes, and the artifacts and interpersonal communications she had saved for thirty-five years.

So many things have changed since 1986, with one constant: no one has ever been charged or convicted of this murder. The investigation remains open and inactive after all these years.

Whether you live in a large city or a small community like Cavalier, the people who are left behind want to know what happened. Is the murderer still living among us? This true crime memoir has been written for those who are left behind and seek closure. The author also writes for two additional audiences: the fans of true-crime stories and the law enforcement officials who are willing to learn how to deal more effectively and respectfully with the victim's friends and families.

Sadly, Jack's case is one of more than 250,000 unsolved homicides cases in the US today. As time passes, the chances of finding the murderer are reduced. But living with an investigation that goes cold is hard to take when it's your friend or family member who's been murdered.

Barbara Rae-Venter isn't just the genealogy expert who helped capture the Golden State Killer--she's an unsung hero who has given murdered women and children their faces and names back.--Maureen Callahan, New York Times bestselling author of American Predator

Echoes the dedication displayed by such fictional police detectives as California novelist Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch.--The Wall Street Journal

For twelve years the Golden State Killer terrorized California, stalking victims and killing without remorse. Then he simply disappeared, for the next forty-four years, until an amateur DNA sleuth opened her laptop. In I Know Who You Are, Barbara Rae-Venter reveals how she went from researching her family history as a retiree to hunting for a notorious serial killer--and how she became the nation's leading authority on investigative genetic genealogy, the most dazzling new crime-fighting weapon to appear in decades.

Rae-Venter shares haunting, often thrilling accounts of how she helped solve some of America's most chilling cold cases in the span of just three years, frequently starting with little more than a DNA sample. She brings readers inside her unique grasshopper mind as she pores through obituaries, marriage records, and old newspaper articles. Readers join in on urgent calls with sheriffs, FBI agents, and district attorneys as she details the struggle to obtain usable crime scene DNA samples, until, finally, a critical piece of the puzzle clicks into place.

I Know Who You Are captures both the exhilaration of these discoveries and the deep-rooted emotions that linger around cold cases. It is a story of relentless curiosity and reinvention, and of human beings striving to answer the most elemental questions about themselves: What defines identity? Where do we belong? And are we truly who we think we are?

On an October evening in South Pasadena, a horrifying wave of flame swept through a large home improvement center, snuffing out the lives of four innocent people, including a two-year-old boy. Firefighters rushed to the scene, even as a pair of equally suspicious fires broke out in two nearby stores. Silently watching the raging inferno in the midst of the heat, smoke, and chaos was a man respected as one of California's foremost arson investigators, a captain in the Glendale Fire Department ...

From Joseph Wambaugh, the critically acclaimed, nationally bestselling author of The Onion Field, comes the astonishing true story of a nightmarish obsession -- and the hunt for a brilliant psychopath who lived a double life filled with professional tributes and terrifying secrets.

Everything a reader wants in a true crime book--murder, mystery, gunfights, courtroom theatrics and dogged police work. --Deborah Blum, bestselling author of The Poisoner's Handbook

Late one evening in the summer of 1922, Henry Wilkens burst through the doors of the emergency room covered in his wife's blood. But was he a grieving husband, or a ruthless killer who conspired with bandits to have her murdered?

To find out, the San Francisco police turned to technology and a new machine that had just been invented in Berkeley by a rookie detective, a visionary police chief, and a teenage magician with a showman's touch.

John Larson, Gus Vollmer and Leonarde Keeler hoped the lie detector would make the justice system fairer - but the flawed device soon grew too powerful for them to control. It poisoned their lives, turned fast friends into bitter enemies, and as it conquered America and the world, it transformed our relationship with the truth in ways that are still being felt.

As new forms of lie detection gain momentum in the present day, Tremors in the Blood reveals the incredible truth behind the creation of the polygraph, through gripping true crime cases featuring explosive gunfights, shocking twists and high-stakes courtroom drama.

Touching on psychology, technology and the science of the truth, Tremors in the Blood is a vibrant, atmospheric thriller, and a warning from history: beware what you believe.

Fierce and absorbing . . . Fabricant chronicles the battles he and his colleagues have fought to unravel a century of fraudulent experts and the bad court decisions that allowed them to thrive. --Washington Post

From CSI to Forensic Files to the celebrated reputation of the FBI crime lab, forensic scientists have long been mythologized in American popular culture as infallible crime solvers. Juries put their faith in expert witnesses and innocent people have been executed as a result. Innocent people are still on death row today, condemned by junk science.

In 2012, the Innocence Project began searching for prisoners convicted by junk science, and three men, each convicted of capital murder, became M. Chris Fabricant's clients. Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System chronicles the fights to overturn their wrongful convictions and to end the use of the science that destroyed their lives. Weaving together courtroom battles from Mississippi to Texas to New York City and beyond, Fabricant takes the reader on a journey into the heart of a broken, racist system of justice and the role forensic science plays in maintaining the status quo.

At turns gripping, enraging, illuminating, and moving, Junk Science is a meticulously researched insider's perspective of the American criminal justice system. Previously untold stories of wrongful executions, corrupt prosecutors, and quackery masquerading as science animate Fabricant's true crime narrative. The paperback edition features a brand-new index as well as an updated introduction and final chapter chronicling the Innocence Project's continued fight against junk science in courtrooms across America.