... one of those extraordinary books that will appeal to almost everyone. If you’re a Mary Roach fan, fascinated by the macabre and grotesque, you’ll get to follow Wiltshire into mortuaries and watch her pick apart cadavers. If you’re a Lab Girl fan, inspired by stories of women blazing new trails in science, that’s Wiltshire’s entire career. If you’re a gardener, you will love knowing how often botany has saved the day. And if you’re a crime fiction fan — well, you’ve found your new favorite sleuth.
In today’s world of scientific specialization, Wiltshire laments the movement away from the traditional fields of science, biology, chemistry, physics, and math. Experiences as a generalist in biology served her well as she developed her expertise in the complex field of forensic ecology. But it is ultimately her scientific mind and inquisitiveness that have been most beneficial to her forensic career. Enjoy this book. It will leave its trace on you.
... fascinating ... Painting a picture based on myriad details is what Ms. Wiltshire does, and she does it again in this lively profile of her work and personality ... In most chapters a bit of well-described Biology 101 leads to a thrilling true-crime story and how Ms. Wiltshire helped solve it in her own exacting way ... there is some redundancy here. Ms. Wiltshire is prone to describe how she solved a case from Fact A to Conclusion Z, and then tells the story over again from Z to A. Likewise, she tends to repeat phrases from one chapter to the next; I found myself wondering if I had lost my place or she just thought I needed reminding ... Crabby, brilliant and brittle, but also quite tender when it comes to the loss and pain of grieving families, Ms. Wiltshire seems to come straight out of a British detective series ... With a lead character like this, the science and crimes, while highly readable, are mainly stages and props for this engaging and enlightening one-woman show.
Those interested in plant and animal sciences or forensics will be particularly rapt at the microscopic levels of proof Wiltshire obtains. Even as she writes for a broad audience, Wiltshire comes across as enigmatic as her subject matter. She writes from a self-centered but somewhat aloof point of view and in a straightforward manner befitting a lecturer. Wiltshire is under no obligation to share herself; her credentials and the case studies speak for themselves.
...outside the particulars of each case, Wiltshire often repeats the descriptions of how she prepares the crime scene objects for analysis and what grasses, pines and nettles are found in each scene. The repeated litanies of pollen and fungi quickly become tired, and there’s no clear logic linking the crime scenes Wiltshire describes. Wiltshire’s autobiographical accounts are similarly disorganized. Her characterizations of influential people in her life are often cursory, and people are reduced to adjectives rather than vivid imagery ... She also makes somewhat callous moralistic observations of the crime scene victims ... The book’s flaws do not detract from Wiltshire’s brilliance and scientific expertise in crime-solving; her precision is evident in how she takes the reader step-by-step through her methods. But given the book’s detached treatment of not only botanical topics but also of people, the text would’ve been better suited as an academic piece or an introductory manual to forensic ecology.
