Traces cover art

Traces

The Memoir of a Forensic Scientist and Criminal Investigator

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Traces

By: Patricia Wiltshire
Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
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About this listen

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, along hedgerows, field-edges, and through plantations - solving time since death, and disposal of remains, from ditches to living rooms.

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. Pat will show you how her work with a microscope reveals tell-tale traces of the world around us, and how these have taken suspects of the darkest criminal activities to court.

From flowers, fungi, tree trunks to car pedals, walking boots, carpets, and corpses' hair, Traces is a fascinating, unique, and utterly compelling audiobook on life, death, and one's indelible link with nature.

©2019 Patricia Wiltshire (P)2019 Bonnier Books UK Law Professionals & Academics Science & Technology Social Sciences Crime Thought-Provoking Forensics

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Critic reviews

"Engrossing, emotionally honest and forensically fascinating." (Dr Richard Shepherd, author of Unnatural Causes)

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You learn so much interesting information which makes you think of your surroundings. It is fascinating in how so much information can be found from where you walk , drive . It is a hard job with great rewards with crimes being solved with the evidence found in the lab/test tube. A book you would keep reading as there is so much fascinating information.

interesting and fascinating

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downloaded as a recommendation after listening to something similar, had no idea what to expect and was pleasantly surprised. treated to a fantastic insight into another area of forensic investigation. Well worth a listen.

excellent!

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i found the book utterly fascinating and gripping. Whilst some of author's personal opinions may be expressed too authoritatively, the description of the world of forensics and the science behind it is incredibly interesting. I must say I was disappointed that it was only this long - I wanted more!

fascinating tale

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couldn't finish it , was almost like listening to a golfer being interviewed at the end of his winning round , did you see me? I was in the zone .
the narrator did her best to inject some life in to a terrible narrative of how this paragon single handedly saved the world .

I'm great I am ..

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This is part autobiography and part memoir about the criminal cases that Patricia has helped to solve throughout her career as a Forensic Scientist and Criminal Investigator. She specialises in pollen and can tell where a person has been by the amounts of certain types of pollen found on their clothes, or even inside their nasal passages.

Some of the cases that Patricia describes were very interesting, and I wasn’t aware of the amount of pollen and other people’s DNA that gets transferred to our clothes everyday, just from either being nearby or accidentally brushing up against people. Some of the things she talked about were a little bit bizarre, such as the body farms, but still equally intriguing. I also now know that a dead body smells of cheese and faeces! The narrator was easy to listen to as well.

I know that Patricia specialises in pollen, but I felt as though there was a little too much technical information and descriptions of the actual pollen itself. I got a bit lost during those parts as I didn’t really understand what she was trying to say about it.

I give this 4 out of 5, instead of 5 out of 5, because of the technical parts that I didn’t really understand.

I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys or is interested in autobiographies and memoirs, true crime, and forensic science.

Pretty good

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