IGCSE Science - CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Books

Forensics and crime scenes topic can be found on pages 32 - 35.

Someone has died! Was it murder? Discover how police and forensic scientists determine the cause of death.

This book is good for your brain because: Archaeology, Geography, Evolution, Environment

Murder! Where is the killer? Discover how finding the murder weapon can help police and forensic scientists put a killer in jail.

Robert Mann, forensic anthropologist, deputy scientific director of the U.S. government's Central Identification Laboratory, and, some might say, the Sherlock Holmes of death detectives. When the dead reveal some of their most sensational, macabre, and poignant tales, more often than not it's Mann who's been listening.

Summary : Detectives find a drop of blood at a crime scene. Will this clue help solve the crime? Discover how police and forensic scientists use blood evidence to catch criminals.

A theft has occurred! The thief left behind few clues. Then a detective finds a fingerprint. Discover how police and forensic scientists use fingerprint evidence to catch criminals.

Charles Frederick Stielow, a 37-year-old farmhand with the mind of an infant, is just minutes away from the electric chair for a double murder he didn’t commit. With a vengeful legal system baying for blood, his situation looks hopeless. Eight blocks away, Stielow’s wife sobs helplessly in her hotel room, certain she will never see her husband alive again

The book describes the established forensic methods: dental records, ballistics, toxicology, hair sampling and blood typing and covers the latest technologies, including: computerized fingerprinting and handwriting analysis, familial searching and DNA screening, and gas chromatography and mass spectrometry.

Summary : The novel centres on Harris Johnston, a 15 year old undertaking a week of work experience at the city’s Forensics Unit. Harris has been interested in forensic pathology for a long time, (much to his mother’s disapproval) and is excited and keen at the prospect of meeting, joining and helping ‘real people’ in this challenging profession.

Summary : Hiding a secret life as an assassin while working as a murder analyst for the Miami police, Dexter Morgan is intrigued by the work of a new serial killer whose style mimics his own.

Summary : A teenager with Asperger's syndrome--smart, quirky, with a passion for crime scene analysis--winds up on trial for murder.

Summary : The thirty-two adult members of an exclusive residential community in West London are brutally murdered, and their children are abducted, leaving no trace. Through the forensic diary of Dr. Richard Greville, Deputy Psychiatric Adviser to the London Metropolitan Police, the brutal details of the massacre that has baffled the entire police department unfold.

Summary : The niece of famed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, fourteen-year-old Tory and her three friends are exposed to a rare strain of canine parvovirus that gives them special powers which they use to try to solve a murder.

Summary : The Virals' home on Loggerhead Island is under threat. A 300-year-old legend Rumour has it that notorious pirate Anne Bonny hid her treasure somewhere in Charleston in 1720. No-one knows where, but Tory Brennan - great-niece of famous forensic anthropologist Dr Tempe Brennan - is certain that the Virals can work out Bonny's cryptic clues.

Summary : On a bitterly cold March night in Montreal, forensic anthroplogist Dr Temperance Brennan is exhuming the remains of a nun proposed for sainthood in the grounds of an old church. Just hours later, Tempe is called to the scene of an horrific arson. A young family has perished, and there seems to be no witness, no motive, no explanation.

Summary : Violence is escalating, and spilling onto the streets of Montreal. A nine-year-old girl is killed in crossfire on her way to ballet class. The body of a teenager killed in North Carolina is found hundreds of miles away. Forensic anthropologist Dr Temperance Brennan has to pick up the pieces

Summary : In the searing heat of Guatemala, Dr Temperance Brennan must harden herself against the horrors she excavates. And then four young girls go missing from Guatemala City. When a skeleton is found at the back of a rundown hotel, only someone with Tempe's expertise can deduce the identity and cause of death.

Summary : After she discovers the skeleton of a young girl in the neighborhood of a childhood best friend who had gone missing thirty years earlier, Tempe Brennan investigates suspicions that her friend was the victim.

Summary : A call to examine a skull found in a hidden floor space plunges forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan into a case that may involve ritual murder.

Summary : Illuminated by lightning, a lifeless human hand seems to reach from a barrel of asphalt beside the Charlotte racetrack. Forensic anthropologist Dr Tempe Brennan must find answers before thousands arrive for the year's big race. But before she can carry out a proper examination, the FBI mysteriously confiscate and destroy the body. It's a dead end.

Summary : Luke Harding is excited to become the youngest person ever to qualify as a forensic investigator. He barely has time to celebrate his final exams when Malc, his Mobile Aid to Law and Crime, calls him to their first case. A fellow student has been mysteriously shot dead with an arrow. Two more grisly on-campus murders follow, and all the evidence points to Luke himself. The stakes are high as Luke sets out to prove his innocence and show that he has the talent to crack any crime.

Summary : In the slums of London, Luke and Malc investigate a doctor's murder. They find a bullet wound to her head, but rain has washed away the bullet - and all other clues. As more innocent victims die, pressure builds on Luke and Malc to find the culprit before the bizarre shooting spree becomes an all-out massacre.

Summary : In the bitter cold of winter, the teenaged forensic investigator and his robotic assistant, Malc, investigate the crime scenes and struggle to identify the murder weapons used, as no traces have been left behind. When a fourth Emily Wonder, a young homeless girl, is reported missing, Luke and Malc rush back to the slums of London to try and save her from both the murderer - and a giant tidal wave that threatens to destroy the city.

Summary : Everton Kohter is a young man on death row—in nineteen days the Authorities will have him executed by lethal injection. But Luke Harding and his airborne robotic sidekick, Malc, have been tipped off that Everton didn’t commit the murder, despite the overwhelming evidence. Against the ticking clock, Luke chases all of his leads—some of which include freak electrical storms and plane crash scenes. Can he piece together the truth that the Authorities failed to find?

Summary : Someone is trying to sabotage the Youth International Games. When the organizer of the games vanishes, the authorities call in Luke Harding to investigate a series of suspicious accidents at the construction site. With the help of Malc and his girlfriend, Jade, Luke closes in on the killer - codenamed Spoilsport. But will Luke be able to overtake Spoilsport on the final lap?

Summary : Luke and his robotic sidekick, Malc, are assigned to a hospital with a mysteriously high rate of fatalities. As Luke investigates a number of suspicious patient deaths, he meets his long-lost father, a doctor who practices alternative medicine at the hospital. But this in no happy family reunion, as Luke's father's DNA in connected to several of the crime scenes, making him Luke's prime suspect!

Summary : A serial killer is on the loose in Richmond. 3 women have died, brutalised and strangled in their own bedroom. There is no pattern: the killer appears to strike at random - but always early on Saturday mornings. When Dr Kay Scarpetta, chief medical officer, is awakened at 2.33 am, she knows the news is bad: there is a fourth victim. She fears now for those that will follow unless she can dig up new forensic evidence to aid the police. But not everyone is pleased to see a woman in this powerful job. Someone may even want to ruin her career and reputation.

Summary : At 11.05 one December evening in Richmond Virginia, convicted murderer Ronnie Joe Waddell is pronounced dead in the electric chair. Dr Kay Scarpetta waits to perform a postmortem. Waddell's death is not the only newsworthy event on this freezing night there is also the killing of a 13-year-old boy. To Scarpetta the two cases seem unrelated, until she recalls that the boy's body had been arranged in a strikingly similar position to that of the executed man's victim.

Summary : Dr. Kay Scarpetta, FBI forensic pathologist, investigates the murder of a child, Emily Steiner. Emily was killed coming home from a North Carolina church meeting. It's a puzzling and terrifying crime, reminiscent of the work of serial killer Temple Gault, who has long eluded Dr. Scarpetta.

Summary : In New York, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, chief medical examiner, matches wits with a sadistic killer who operates in the subway tunnels. After killing a transit policeman he infiltrates the FBI's computers and sends her taunting messages while continuing to kill. The Central Park (New York) murder of a young, homeless woman on Christmas sends medical examiner Scarpetta, her friend Captain Marino, & her niece on a chase that ends in the subway.

Summary : In Norfolk, Virginia, a reporter is killed while scuba diving in the naval yard. As she investigates, chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta uncovers a plot by a fascist militia to take over an atomic power plant.

Summary : Virginia's chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta matches wits with a wily killer who uses fire to mask his crimes. The case begins with a fire in which many horses die and the embers yield a human body.

Summary : Chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta of Richmond, Virginia, investigates a body found in a ship's container from Europe. A tattoo on the body sends her flying to Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France, where she learns of a killer known as The Werewolf.

Summary : The eleventh Scarpetta novel, in which the Chief Medical Examiner is under a Grand Jury investigation for murder. She knows she's being framed and she no longer knows who she can trust .

Summary : Leaving behind her forensic pathology practice in South Carolina, Kay Scarpetta takes up an assignment in New York City, where the NYPD has asked her to examine an injured patient in a psychiatric ward. The handcuffed and chained patient, Oscar Bane, has specifically asked for her, and when she literally has her gloved hands on him, he begins to talk - and the story he has to tell turns out to be one of the most bizarre she has ever heard.

Summary : It is the week before Christmas. A tanking economy has prompted Dr. Kay Scarpetta - despite her busy schedule and her continuing work as the senior forensic analyst for CNN - to offer her services pro bono to New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. In no time at all, her increased visibility seems to precipitate a string of unexpected and unsettling events. Soon she is embroiled in a surreal plot that includes a famous actor accused of an unthinkable sex crime and the disappearance of a beautiful millionairess.