Murder Cannot be Long Hid

~ Shakespeare

I enjoy reading detective fiction. Holding a forensic science degree means that I like to see proper evidence to help the detective reach their conclusion. Just give me evidence to prove your case and solve your crime.

Image: Edinburgh Castle from the Grass Market George Washington Wilson (Scottish, 1823-1893) taken at sometime between 1865 – 1885. Digital file from Cornell University Library. Public Domain. Accessed via Wikicommons

Detective fiction is one of the few genres I read outside of speculative fiction. Today I am going to talk about Murder in Edinburgh, by Val Penny. And, there’s nary a spell nor a futuristic detector in sight. The back cover copy is what pulled me in.

A woman’s body is found in a shallow grave on the edge of an exclusive Edinburgh golf course. The victim bears the signs of a brutal struggle: blows to the body, marks around her throat, knees scraped raw as she fought to escape.But there is no name. No phone. No one reported missing.Detective Hunter Wilson is summoned from his regular darts night to take the call. Two decades on the force, he’s seen plenty. But this one gets under his skin from the start.Then a pregnant teenager is mown down on Comiston Road — and Hunter realises this killer isn’t finished.In a city where everyone knows everyone else, there’s a killer hiding in plain sight. And it’s up to Hunter to uncover the truth before they strike again.

Detective Hunter Wilson is a stalwart of the Lothian and Borders Police, So, it’s set before 2013, when the regional police forces became one national entity, Police Scotland. His hated police chief has retired, but still pokes his nose into the department when he literally trips over a murder. Well, it’s not him who does the tripping, it’s the thief he’s chasing. This discovery is the first of a chain of murders caused by one man’s refusal to keep it zipped.

The setting is good, we have a tour of Edinburgh without being overwhelmed by background. But if you follow me at all, you’ll be wanting to hear about the forensics.

Now I’m a sucker for detective fiction that uses forensics. I opened this book. Right away, there’s the criminal out to rob a house, and he’s telling me all about how he knows that the cops can trace a footwear mark so he’s wearing shoes that are too small. Well, the author hooked me right there. The chase through the night with the thief complaining of his feet hurting had me laughing. If he’d been wearing his normal shoes, he probably wouldn’t have tripped over the first corpse and broken an ankle.

Then we get on to time of death. The body has been outside in the woods for a few days, and here we have the pathologist talking about bugs and their life cycle. The growth of insects is so regular that you can set your calendar by it. Making it a valuable tool for dating bodies. It may seem odd to other people, but this forensic scientist really enjoyed the inclusion of proper forensic tests.

I don’t think the forensics are too much for the average lay person, the details are skimmed over. And to be honest, I’m not sure too many people want to know about the life cycle of blowflies (though if you do, you can read about it here.) But to me, it was wonderful to see the crime solved using proper forensic techniques. Okay, it was with the old stand-by of DNA analysis, which isn’t as useful as you might think, but the detectives combined their intuition with solid science. And to me that’s a good detective book.

Cover image taken from the Amazon Website

To sum up, I highly recommend Murder in Edinburgh, if you are into detective fiction. And, Val Penny pleased this forensic scientist by using science along with detective work to make her case.

Murder In Edinburgh is available from Amazon. https://www.amazon.co.uk/EDINBURGH-absolutely-gripping-Detective-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B0GX34K8HF/ref=sr_1_1

If you are interested in forensics, I wrote a series of articles on the Mozart Cultures website. You can find out about footwear marks, fingerprints and states of decay.