What the Corpse Revealed: Murder and the Science of Forensic Detection [Hardcover]

Hugh Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1999

Presented here in dramatic detail are sixteen riveting, real-life criminal cases taken from the files of forensic scientists all over the world.

In What the Corpse Revealed, bestselling author and forensic expert Hugh Miller collects these incredible true-crime stories that confounded traditional police detection. Including only those cases solved on the basis of scientific investigation, Miller takes us through each one from the viewpoint of the key actors, and in detailed procedural stages shows how the perpetrators of the crimes were found.

Using the faintest fingerprints and often minute samples of blood, hair, and saliva to identify their quarry, the scientists in What the Corpse Revealed pursue the truth with the intensity of obsession. These pages depict the inhuman worst in human nature, yet the investigation of each case reveals forensic scientists at their best. What the Corpse Revealed is a penetrating look at the work of people for whom nightmare and taboo are the stuff of everyday life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Miller, a British writer on forensic science, has put together a highly informative collection of true-life criminal cases solved chiefly through the efforts of forensic experts. There is not a dull case among the 16, and some of them, with their airtight alibis, red herrings and maddening paradoxes, are pure Agatha Christie. An American engineer in Buenos Aires, who conceals his secret life as an obsessive gambler and philanderer, dies in his home of carbon monoxide poisoning, though no CO-producing source is evident. A house maid in the Hamptons rubs out her employersAa millionaire barbecue manufacturer and his wifeAin revenge for her brother's accidental death, using bullets made of pork that fragment and dissolve into her victims' bodies. Miller, a British master of the forensic procedural, deftly interweaves just enough detail on DNA analysis, chemistry, ballistics and other tricks of the trade for readers to come away with a keen appreciation of the uncanny, scientifically grounded sleuthing of forensic investigators who prove that where there's a crime, there's a clue. International in scope, this highly entertaining compendium hops from the murder of a Yorkshire constable's unfaithful wife to the arson of an L.A. retirement home for silent-film performers to cases from Spain, Italy and Hungary. Miller is a wry observer of the vagaries of justice and family psychodynamics, the thirst for redress and even vengeance. Photos.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Every crime has a story. Finding the story is done with the help of forensic science. Miller, an expert on forensic medicine and the author of forensic mystery novels such as Skin Deep (St. Martins, 1992), provides the reader with 15 cases in which forensic medicine helped solve the crime. These true cases are from Europe and the United States. With the exception of one, they each tell a fascinating but sad story of how the victim died and how the killer was caught. The lone exception is a foiled attempt on the life of a famous actor, a case that was solved before the perpetrator succeeded. This well-written book holds the readers attention through all the background and methods of forensic detection. The reader will be amazed how far forensic science has come in helping to finish the story. Highly recommended for all crime collections.Michael Sawyer, Northwestern Regional Lib., Elkin, NC
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr (June 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312205465
• ISBN-13: 978-0312205461
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,620,630 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Crime fiction - not fact, August 21, 2003

By 

Greyhaunt "greyhaunt" (AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What the Corpse Revealed (Paperback)

I started getting suspicious when all the deserving bad guys seemed to get killed or commit suicide in the first several stories. Then I got to the one about the hollywood actor who starred in a TV family comedy that ran 10 years from 1974. Cute, except no such TV show exists, nor does the named actor. When this many facts have been changed there no longer is any basis in reality.

As another reader mentioned, the case involving the hungarian ex-policeman who claims he's being threatened with death when a pig's head is found with a message in his mouth is VERY loosely based on a case in England. In the real case there was no crippled child to add pathos to the "story", nor was there a similarly crippled forensic scientist who miraculously solved the case.

Fictional cases, fictional experts, fictional criminals - Why is this book listed in True Crime?

I've been completely cheated by buying this book and if I could I'd demand my money back from the publisher! When I want to buy non-fiction I want non-fiction, not this tripe.

Buyer beware and skip this book, there are better works on forensics that give more accurate details on procedure and demonstrate real cases.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Farfetched, October 18, 2004

By 

TawnTawn (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What the Corpse Revealed (Paperback)

While reading this book I found the details of some cases to be unbelievable. Also, the "photographs" of the murderers and detectives all looked fuzzy and more like drawings. I've read a lot of true crime and never heard of catching a murderer because he breathed his asthma medication on the murder victim's hair. Or because they chemically deduced which cologne he wore. And who leaves their backdoor open when they know a violent Doberman Pinscher has been getting through their backyard fence? Sure, just let that dog on in. And whose place of employment has a record of all employee's blood "groups" (not their TYPES, just their GROUPS), when the employee doesn't even know HIMSELF what group he is?

Then I read the introduction, which I always skip, and found out this book is FICTION, not true crime as the cover announced and in which section it was in in the book store.

As FICTION, it's okay, (I prefer Agatha Christie), but I don't believe the forensic work in this book is even based on any fact. So read it for entertainment, but don't be so gullible as to believe any of it.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars pulp fiction?, April 24, 2002

By 

keith mcconnon (reno, nv) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What the Corpse Revealed (Paperback)

The jacket of What the Corpse Revealed proclaims Henry Miller as "the author of many nonfiction books and several successful novels." This book had me wondering which category he was aiming for: nonfiction book or True Detective Stories magazine.
The cover, complete with glowing reviews from Publishers Weekly, lead me to believe this was a serious book on the ever-increasing role of forensic science in modern criminology. The preface, however, tells another story. Here Miller reveals that "the names of the characters, places, and certain incidents and photographs... have been changed and/or fictionalized." This information is repeated in a note to the reader immediately following the preface, making his claim of the forensic details being genuine hard to take seriously. The alphabetical index in the back lends an air of legitimacy to the book, though referencing material that may or may not be "changed and/or fictionalized" seems pointless.
While entertaining, this collection of 16 stories read like a cheap detective novel. The stories themselves are indeed fascinating, but I found them impossible to read without wondering just how much truth, if any, they contained. The details of the forensic procedures used to solve these "cases" may be technically accurate, but they were lost in the film noire, dime-store style of storytelling. The stories are all fairly predictable, thanks to an abundance of stereotyped villains, persistent gumshoes and thick-headed cops.
What the Corpse Revealed was informative in one respect; I now know where the expression "you can't judge a book by its cover" came from. I'll be more careful next time I go book shopping.