Friday Finds (September 27)

Hosted by Miz B of Should Be Reading
FRIDAY FINDS showcases the books you ‘found’ and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list… whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library — wherever! (they aren’t necessarily books you purchased).

First up this week is Silent Witnesses: A History of Forensic Science by Nigel McCrery  You can read a great review of this book from Fiction Fan

Blurb

A crime scene. A murder. A mystery.
The most important person on the scene? The forensic scientist. And yet the intricate details of their work remains a mystery to most of us.
Silent Witnesses looks at the history of forensic science over the last two centuries, during which time a combination of remarkable intuition, painstaking observation and leaps in scientific knowledge have developed this fascinating branch of detection. Throwing open the casebook, it introduces us to such luminaries as ‘The Wizard of Berkeley’ Edward Heinrich, who is credited with having solved over 2000 crimes, and Alphonse Bertillon, the French scientist whose guiding principle ‘no two individuals share the same characteristics’ became the core of identification. Along the way, it takes us to India and Australia, Columbia and China, Russia, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. And it proves that, in order to solve ever more complicated cases, science must always stay one step ahead of the killer. Amazon

My love of crime novels stems back to the True Crime magazines I read as  a teenager.  Even buying these magazines was quite a feat as I am vertically challenged and these were on the top shelf next to the girly mags.   At school I obviously scrutinised every page of Just Seventeen and Smash Hits with the other (more normal girls)  but I loved scaring myself in stupid in secret.

Therefore despite vowing no more books I now have a need to own Silent Witness and this will be a hardback purchase as my peculiar rules mean non-fiction needs to be bought in physical format only!

Another must-have book that made it to the list this week is The Marriage Certificate by Stephen Molyneux

Blurb

The Marriage Certificate … the issue is a mystery.
What prompts amateur family historian Peter Sefton to buy the marriage certificate he sees on display in an antiques arcade? Is it because he thinks it should be private and he wants to remove it from public view? Is it the prospect of researching the individuals named upon it? Or is it something else, happenstance perhaps, which leads him towards a potentially lucrative discovery and a long forgotten family secret?
When John and Louisa marry in January 1900, who could foretell how their lives and those of ambitious Rose, the bridesmaid, and confident Frank, the best man, would be changed that day?
Follow their story, through Peter’s research and find out how, with investigative skill and a certain amount of luck, Peter finds himself pulled along to uncover a series of sad and tragic events … events, which connect the marriage certificate to a modern day mystery. But … there’s a complication. In his quest to complete the family tree he learns that he has competition. It’s not just a matter of pride; there’s money at stake too. Should he the amateur give up, or can he really beat the professionals at their own game?

Since my favourite genealogy mystery writer Steve Robinson has delayed his fourth book this may just fill the gap. Set in my favourite time period with a mystery to solve, I can already picture myself reading this one in front of the fire.

This page could go on forever so I am going to resist showing you the other genealogy mystery books I found when locating the blurb for this one…. let’s just say at least one more book has snuck its way on to that TBR.  If you would like to read some of my thoughts on this unusual genre please see my Monday Musing from September 9

Lastly I really want to read Cartwheel by Jennifer duBois I have read a number of reviews for this book but quite like this one by Never Enough to Read.  This book was published 24 September 2013 but it doesn’t appear to have been released for kindle yet.

Written with the riveting storytelling of authors like Emma Donoghue, Adam
Johnson, Ann Patchett, and Curtis Sittenfeld, Cartwheel is a suspenseful
and haunting novel of an American foreign exchange student arrested for murder,
and a father trying to hold his family together.

When Lily Hayes arrives in Buenos Aires for her semester abroad, she is enchanted by
everything she encounters: the colorful buildings, the street food, the
handsome, elusive man next door. Her studious roommate Katy is a bit of a bore,
but Lily didn’t come to Argentina to hang out with other Americans.

Five weeks later, Katy is found brutally murdered in their shared home, and Lily is
the prime suspect. But who is Lily Hayes? It depends on who’s asking. As the
case takes shape—revealing deceptions, secrets, and suspicious DNA—Lily appears
alternately sinister and guileless through the eyes of those around her: the
media, her family, the man who loves her and the man who seeks her conviction.
With mordant wit and keen emotional insight, Cartwheel offers a prismatic
investigation of the ways we decide what to see—and to believe—in one another
and ourselves.

In Cartwheel, duBois delivers a novel of
propulsive psychological suspense and rare moral nuance. No two readers will
agree who Lily is and what happened to her roommate. Cartwheel will keep
you guessing until the final page, and its questions about how well we really
know ourselves will linger well beyond.

I am being fairly consistent this week as this book is clearly based on the murder of  Meredith Kercher  and her room mate Amanda Knox so true crime disguised as fiction.

 

Related articles

• Silent Witnesses: A History of Forensic Science by Nigel McCrery (fictionfanblog.wordpress.com)
• Musing Monday (September 9) (cleopatralovesbooks.wordpress.com)
• Cartwheel by Jennifer duBois (literatehousewife.com)