Part memoir, part look at the development of some aspects of forensic science in criminal cases this is an interesting read. Husband and wife authors Derek and Pauline Tremain both started their careers in forensic medical science around Guy’s Hospital. Pauline as a PA taking dictation from forensic pathologists in the room as their analysis happens, and Derek as a 15-year-old museum technician. Their interest in the work and commitment to working hard and developing their skills has led to a fascinating career.

The book is reminiscent of the insights into daily working life seen in a flood of books following in the wake of Adam Kay’s This Is Going to Hurt. With the different approach that different chapters are written from either Derek or Pauline’s perspectives giving insight into different parts of the organisation.

The day to day stories in How to Solve a Murder are interesting and sometimes amusing, but feel quite surface level. There are vague references to tensions in the working environment on latter years at St Guy’s, but no sense of what this means. This stops it short of being a really engaging memoir.

The bits that really drew me in were Derek’s more detailed chapter on developing weapon/injury overlay - if you’ve watched the fictional forensic detective shows such as Bones or CSI this will be familiar territory. How the lab matches the weapon with the injury, allowing for height of perpetrator to victim, angle of entry, force etc. The development of this and Derek’s involvement in cases demonstrating the value are really interesting and to be honest a book entirely on this would have been a much better prospect.

If you’re fascinated by forensics and want to read something which is at an appropriate level for laypeople this has much to offer. I think it’s been diluted by trying to be the stories of two people who only have small overlaps in the actual work they do until the latter years where they worked together on body mapping in the private sector.

I'm a huge fan of crime novels and have always been interested in the truth behind the fiction! This seemed like the perfect opportunity to find out a bit more about forensic investigation from people who have spent their careers in the field - thanks to NetGalley for my copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I'd already read the book 'Unnatural Causes' by Dr Richard Shepherd (who worked with the Tremains and who wrote the foreword for this book). I was hoping for more of the same - an insight into the cases that shaped a fascinating career choice. This book is much more about the forensic techniques than the actual cases, but it was still interesting.

The book mainly covers Derek Tremain's career from a 15 year-old student technician at Gordon Museum (a museum of medical specimens) to working in Guy's Hospital's forensics department to setting up his own company dealing in body mapping of wounds for legal trials. It's an interesting story, gruesome at times, and gives a lot of information about tests for various conditions carried out post-mortem. There's some humorous anecdotes amid the gory details - Pauline's coffee-making story being a very odd but funny moment!

Most of the story is told by Derek, but there are sections narrated by Pauline too - she worked at the forensics department in a secretarial role that took her way beyond the regular job. Indeed, she tells of crime scenes and mortuary visits which are interesting. However, it is difficult to tell from the layout of the book who is 'speaking' as the electronic version doesn't make it clear and the perspective changes from Derek to Pauline between paragraphs sometimes.

Overall, this is an engaging read for those interested in forensics. It is perhaps a little too detailed in terms of testing procedures at times - I'd like to hear more about the cases that the Tremains worked on - but I enjoyed this and read it in a day.

I was very excited to get my hands on this audiobook and loved the idea of hearing from a married couple within the forensic pathology field. The first part of the book was fascinating, especially Derek's sections. I found the sections from Pauline quite dull in comparison with a lot of extra unneeded and irrelevant information. I ended up switching back and forth between the audiobook and the kindle version. This helped as there was photo's included in the kindle book. Overall an interesting book/audiobook for people who are interested in the subject but don't know a lot already.

For research (on writing) this book was perfect. I have learnt quite much from this book which I will hopefully be able to use in my own writing from now on. On a personal level, I am rather staying with True-Crime books about serial killers instead of methods on how to catch them.

I reveived a free ARC by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

An interesting book which is describe as spending a day in the company of a friend who works in a pathologists. This book is written so warmly that you feel as though the author is reminiscing with you personally, telling you interesting stories from their past. It's not written as this is how we for example identify a drowning situation etc, though it does tell you things like this, instead it's more this is how I got into doing this and then I started doing this procedure in these steps which told me xyz etc. It's a lovely book to read and very interesting, and only slightly grizzly in parts. I'd recommend