Marty Goddard dreamed up a new crime-solving tool—a kit that could help rape survivors fight for justice. This thrilling investigation tells the story of the troubled, heroic woman who kicked off a feminist revolution in forensics, and then vanished into obscurity.
Kennedy follows Goddard’s trajectory, which is a fascinating story in and of itself, but she goes beyond the inventor as well. She writes about just how broken the system for reporting sexual assault remains, and how victims were and still are often undermined, deemed untrustworthy or incapable of making sound judgments ... a relatively slender book, but it packs a punch. It’s an important investigation of a complex inventor, her flawed but revolutionary technology, and how it has never been allowed to live up to her hopes for it.
Kennedy’s hunt for Goddard becomes the biggest driver of tension in the first half of the book. The impulse to include this behind-the-scenes look at her reportorial process is understandable. It’s practically de rigueur in modern true crime writing. But in this story, it creates something of a narrative problem. The tension of Goddard’s quasi-disappearance (where is she?) is undercut by Goddard’s constantly being quoted ... Kennedy shines when she brings her deep knowledge of the history and potential of technological innovation to the page ... Perhaps the most important and heartening section of the book illustrates the progress that came as a direct result of Goddard’s invention — including insights into perpetrators of sexual violence and innovations in investigating sexual assault currently being made today, even still to come ... Kennedy might not have been able to find Goddard but avenge her she has. This book (and a quick internet search where the invention of the rape kit is now correctly attributed to her) is proof.
Through this book, Kennedy highlights the progress enabled by Goddard’s unsung efforts, namely the wholesale evolution of forensic science that can now link microscopic DNA evidence to a vast network of potential perpetrators. But her chronology can feel a bit manic, jumping from the 1800s to the 1900s to the 1600s in the span of a few pages. Further complicating the timeline, Kennedy weaves her own trauma experience into the narrative, an effort I assume is meant to underscore how little feminist activism has actually changed society.
