Written on the Skin

Liz Porter

Nov 2007 · Pan Australia

About this ebook

A crime scene investigator notes the tiny indentations on the fragments of a tin can identified at a bomb site. After months of testing he is able to match them to the can opener that made them - and lead police to the bomb-maker who used it.

A forensic dentist documents the marks in chewing gum dropped by a thief during a burglary and matches them to the teeth of the suspect. A forensic physician examines an abused child, "reading" the terrible alphabet that fists and weapons write on the skin and identifying a mother's hairbrush as the source of the "tramline bruising" on her daughter's leg.

Liz Porter's riveting casebook shows how forensic investigators - including pathologists, chemists, entomologists, DNA specialists and document examiners - have used their specialist knowledge to identify victims, catch perpetrators, exonerate innocent suspects and solve dozens of crimes and mysteries.

Winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best True Crime 2007

About the author

Liz Porter is a journalist who began her career in Hong Kong and then worked in Sydney, London and Stuttgart before returning to her home town of Melbourne, where she is a feature writer for the Sunday Age. She has won awards for her writing on legal issues and has published a novel. She lives with her partner, her daughter and the obligatory female-writer quota of two cats and is a hopelessly devoted fan of the St Kilda Football Club.