Written In Bone by Sue Black

 

The author, Dame Sue Black, is a forensic anthropologist who works in Scotland.  In this nonfiction book, Black takes the reader through her work and reveals what the bones can tell about a person and the manner of their death.  She starts at the top with the skull and goes down the body, using real-life cases to illustrate ways that specific bones were used to unravel mysteries.

Black has worked on cases all over the world.  She details her work on an Italian serial killer case, The Monster Of Terrazzo.  This case has an interesting side story.  Dame Black was asked to take the two heads of the victims back to her laboratory for additional work.  She carried the heads on a commercial flight in her hand luggage and her dry retelling of going through customs with this case and what the inspector's reaction would have been to a search is priceless.  She also worked on a case involving a serial killer from Thailand and identified victims of Scottish killer Dennis Nilsen.

She has also worked extensively in war crimes, identifying victims and providing evidence to bring perpetrators to justice.  She was awarded an OBE for her work in Kosovo in 2001.  She worked in Thailand after the tsunami in 2004.  She also worked proving torture in victims arrested for political crimes after the Arab Spring uprising.

Another major interest of Black is child sexual abuse.  She works on finding ways to identify the predators and bring them to justice.  Using pictures captured in pedophile cases, she is able to identify other abusers.  Her work with others in this project has resulted in 30 life sentences and over 400 years of prison time for those convicted.  This book details one of the roots of her interest in this area; the fact that she herself was a victim of childhood sexual abuse.

Readers interested in forensic anthropology and true crime cases will find this book fascinating. It combines the scientific facts with interesting examples from the author's personal work.   I listened to it and the author was also the narrator and did a wonderful job explaining her work and outlining all the cases she has worked on.  Dame Sue Black has more awards from both law enforcement and the Scottish government as well as academia than I have time to list.  She is an accomplished woman who has made her interest into an astonishing career.  This book is recommended for nonfiction readers.