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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Flawed but good reading, January 26, 2006
This review is from: Bodies We've Buried: Inside the National Forensic Academy, the World's Top CSI Training School (Hardcover)
I reviewed this book for several newspapers and have my full published review posted at my online Science Shelf book review archive, where you can find details to support my conclusion. The authors (Jarrett Hallcox and Amy Welch, not Bill Bass who only wrote the foreword) manage the world's premier CSI training program, but they are not trained scientists and sometimes misstate the science. Despite obvious errors (at least to someone with some scientific training), the book is good reading when the authors stick to their personal observations of the famed "Body Farm" and other venues of the ten-week hands-on training course. They are also not professional authors, and better editing could have helped them avoid some lapses into self-promotion as well the above noted problems with the science. If you like watching the CSI franchise on TV and you're looking for entertainment without absolute accuracy, this book is a good choice.
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20 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Major disappointment - don't bother buying this!, January 15, 2006
This review is from: Bodies We've Buried: Inside the National Forensic Academy, the World's Top CSI Training School (Hardcover)
I have read a number of books on forensics and forensic anthropology and picked up this book eagerly--hoping for insight into the real world of CSI. Unfortunately this book is very poorly written. The legal and grammatical errors were glaring, and made me wonder if anyone at the publisher ever really edited it. It is a dull read, despite the subject-matter, and a hard slog to finish. Shame on Patricia Cornwell for describing it as a "wonderful book"! If you want to know just how well written, informative and thought-provoking books on this topic can be, let me recommend that you look instead at: 1. Corpse: Nature, Forensics, and the Struggle to Pinpoint Time of Death by Jessica Snyder Sachs. 2. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. 3. Dead Men Do Tell Tales : The Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist by William R. Maples, Michael Browning.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A detailed peek inside the National Forensic Academy, May 11, 2007
The College Of Carnage. The Harvard Of Hellish Violence. The National Forensic Academy has earned many nicknames from its students. In this book, you'll find out why. 'Bodies We've Buried' takes us from day one of classes at this esteemed institution through all ten intensive weeks (two and a half months) of the program. From how to properly use a camera through an extremely detailed description of an actual autopsy (put on a glove and come feel this), the steps of a CSI investigator are outlined chapter by chapter. Down On The Farm, Diggin Up Bones, It's A Rigorous Job But Someone's Got To Do It, Vinyl Resting Place, Heart Strings, and Spatter Up! are the best chapters in the book, gruesome and filled with extremely grisly details. These are the chapters that focus on dead bodies, blood splatter, bones, and "human effluence" of crime scenes. There are also chapters on arson and bombings. (Did you know that there are five degrees of burns and not just three? The last two occur after death) The leading chapters tend to be the most boring, like the authors were warming up to a subject. Stick through the details of photography and fingerprinting to get to the "meat" of the subject. The authors themselves tend to become more relaxed as the subjects get gorier. There's lots of pictures, though very few are of the gruesome nature (but look out, some of them are!). The details of this book show the tremendous impact that a good CSI can have on a crime scene, and the problems that an untrained CSI can inadvertently cause. I can hardly imagine spending two and a half months in the intensive training program that these dedicated people go through. Though close to being a technical novel, I ate this book up in a single day - it's that interesting. There's a detailed Glossary of terms, a "Who's Who In Forensic Investigation" giving specific titles of who handles what evidence, a Resources bibliography, Acknowledgements, and an extensive Index. If your truly into the field of dead bodies, then this book is worth the hardcover price, otherwise wait for the paperback. Also, check out 'Stiff: The Curious Lives Of Human Cadavers' by Mary Roach. Enjoy!
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