VAL McDERMID has published twenty-eight crime novels, which have sold millions of copies worldwide, been translated into sixteen languages and won multiple awards. Her series featuring criminal profiler Tony Hill was the basis for the TV series The Wire in the Blood for ITV.Wellcome Collection is a free museum and library that aims to challenge how we think and feel about health. Inspired by the medical objects and curiosities collected by Henry Wellcome, it connects science, medicine, life and art. Wellcome Collection exhibitions, events and books explore a diverse range of subjects, including consciousness, forensic medicine, emotions, sexology, identity and death. Wellcome Collection is part of Wellcome, a global charitable foundation that exists to improve health for everyone by helping great ideas to thrive, funding over 14,000 researchers and projects in more than 70 countries.wellcomecollection.org

McDermid has not lost her early journalistic genius for telling a good story plainly -- Ian Finlayson Times ... the science of forensics has come a long way, as Val McDermid relates in this fascinating study. McDermid, best known for her gritty psychological thrillers, has interviewed a wide range (a morgue? a graveyard?) of forensic scientists and has revisited some of the most gruesome true life mysteries to piece together a gripping history of the anatomy of crime. Each of the chapters - which examine themes such as fire scene investigation, toxicology, fingerprinting, DNA and blood splatter and facial reconstruction - contains a wealth of surprising information -- Andrew Wilson Independent ... she dissects the history of forensics through gripping stories of real-life crime. New Statesman Fascinating history of forensic science ... McDermid provides a grimly absorbing account of crime and it's detection -- Ian Thompson Observer Every bit as compelling as the best of the fictional genre Irish Times Praise for Val McDermid: 'McDermid has the ruthless psychological scalpel that forms part of the equipment of all good novelists, whatever their genre. And, fortunately for us, she knows just how to use it. Guardian The sheer brio of McDermid's writing produces that increasingly rare thing, a genuine page-turner that doesn't insult its readers' intelligence. Independent To write one brilliant book is hard. To write 25 is a miracle. That is what Val McDermid has achieved over the course of her career and it's why she is a much-loved legend in the literary world. Sunday Express