In the fight against crime, science and technology now play the leading role in many of the big police investigations making news headlines. All criminals leave a little of themselves behind at the scene of their crimes and that is their undoing once CSIs start uncovering trails of clues hidden in blood or fragments of DNA. This book lets you in on the secrets of criminal investigators as well as the cutting-edge techniques science has brought to police work.

In the following pages you will discover:

• How evidence is collected and analyzed
• What clues can be obtained from a crime scene and a corpse
• What happens at an autopsy
• How a pathologist determines the time and cause of death
• How DNA, toxicology, trace evidence analysis and forensic entomology can break an airtight alibi
• How forensic science has been used to overturn a wrongful conviction and expose a serious miscarriage of justice
• Insights into real cases taken from the files of law enforcement agencies around the world, many of them appearing in print for the first time

Investigative journalist Paul Roland delves into every major category of crime, sifting through all the evidence to present a compelling blood-spattered history of crime scenes past and present.