Traces - Professor Patricia Wiltshire
About the book
EVERY BODY LEAVES A MARK
In Traces, Professor Patricia Wiltshire will take you on a journey through the fascinating edgeland where nature and crime are intertwined. She'll take you searching for bodies of loved ones - through woodlands and plantations, along hedgerows and field-edges, from ditches to living rooms - solving time since death and how remains were disposed of. She will show you how pollen from a jacket led to a confession and how two pairs of trainers, a car and a garden fork led to the location of a murdered girl. She will give you glimpses of her own history: her loves, her losses, and the narrow little valley in Wales where she first woke up to the wonders of the natural world.
From flowers, fungi, tree trunks to walking boots, carpets and corpses' hair, Traces is a fascinating and unique book on life, death, and one's indelible link with nature.
About the author
Professor Patricia Wiltshire has worked on over 250 criminal cases across the UK, including some of the highest profile cases of the past 25 years. A leading voice in forensic science, she has worked with every police force in the UK on cases involving rape, murder, abduction, neglect, and searching for graves and hidden remains. She lives in Surrey with her husband David and cat, Maudie.
Discover more about the book and author
Listen to Patricia Wiltshire on BBC Outlook.
Read this interview with the author.
Our Librarians’ Reviews
Reviewed by Mary
"An interesting look at a job most people won’t have heard of, how pollen can be used in forensic work to match people and belongings up with places they have been. She takes you through her work with the police on recent crime scenes. You might want to skip this one if you’re squeamish as there’s some rather graphic description and photographs.
Patricia combines both her work and personal life in this memoir, showing how her varied career has led her to this field. Hearing about cases that have been in the news from her perspective was fascinating. I found the sections about her as a young child less interesting, but they do give an impression of her background and upbringing.
I would recommend this to lovers of true crime or forensic books, but also those who are interested in botany and the natural world”
Reviewed by Dominic
Traces is written by a trailblazer for forensic palynology, the study of pollen, and plant and fungal spores, to help solve crimes. It’s about the link between people and places, the importance of details and treating each criminal case as unique, and establishing truth beyond a reasonable doubt. It captures just how rewarding those “Eureka!” moments that make the hours of tedium worthwhile, and how important it is not to disturb a crime scene. However, it also shows how palynological work has been obstructed by the scepticism, prejudice, or incompetence of other police or scientific staff, and raises concerns over the current quality of forensic services and the future of botany and mycology within them.
I learnt, and found fascinating: why pollen and spores are excellent trace evidence; how diverse, widespread and long-living fungi are; how potent hydrofluoric acid is; the difference between poisons, venoms and toxins. You may well come to feel differently about your biological self and its place in the cycle of assembly and breakdown. The descriptions of decomposition from one who’s job requires emotional detachment are enough to make one desire a quick cremation after death, and the crimes and pathology procedures on view are gruesome, almost comically so at times.