Written on the Skin
Porter, Liz

RRP
A$24.95

A crime scene investigator notes the tiny indentations on the fragments of a tin can identified at a bomb site. After months of testing he is able to match them to the can opener that made them - and lead police to the bomb-maker who used it.

A forensic dentist documents the marks in chewing gum dropped by a thief during a burglary and matches them to the teeth of the suspect. A forensic physician examines an abused child, "reading" the terrible alphabet that fists and weapons write on the skin and identifying a mother's hairbrush as the source of the "tramline bruising" on her daughter's leg.

Liz Porter's riveting casebook shows how forensic investigators - including pathologists, chemists, entomologists, DNA specialists and document examiners - have used their specialist knowledge to identify victims, catch perpetrators, exonerate innocent suspects and solve dozens of crimes and mysteries.

Author Information

Liz Porter is a journalist who began her career in Hong Kong and then worked in Sydney, London and Stuttgart before returning to her home town of Melbourne, where she is a feature writer for the Sunday Age. She has won awards for her writing on legal issues and has published a novel. She lives with her partner, her daughter and the obligatory female-writer quota of two cats and is a hopelessly devoted fan of the St Kilda Football Club.