According to the Evidence

This, the second book in the Richard Pryor series, is a strong sequel to the first.

Deliciously authentic 1950s forensic pathology with a touch of police investigation and court process.

We also see the 50s-esque sexual tension bloom between Dr Pryor, Moira Davidson & Dr Angela Bray, all of which looks like it may very well peak in the third coming novel.

A great read, but maybe not for everyone.

Bit disappointed as not a detective novel in the sense that I have become used to. Once I realised that, it was an interesting look at 1950's British forensic work.

It also gave great insight into the importance of home cooking & how excessive the diet of the characters was!! I felt the author was rather obsessed with the great detail of virtually every meal.

However, it may reflect 1950's Britain, when post war food wasn't rationed & explain how our ever expanding waist lines started!

Richard Pryor and his "team" are working in Wales on forensic medicine in the 1950's. Richard gets called out to various unattended deaths or to suspicious deaths to perform autopsies, as well as routine post-mortems when the attending physicians or local coroner is away. His team consists of another doctor, Angela, who does the biological/blood work, a lab assistant who works with all the fancy new machinery and a secretary/housekeeper.

Three different cases are looked at in this book, a possible murder by a veterinarian of his dying spouse, a death that first looks like an accident, then a military case that was deemed an accident but a widow believes it was murder.

The most interesting thing about these books is the science around show more forensics. We are so used to DNA and fingerprints and all the sciences used to examine a dead body that we forget how new most of that science is. Yes, there were fingerprints back then but they had to be compared by hand to fingerprint cards and those cards were few and far between. The study of the body chemistry and how it breaks down and how fast (or slow) it happens was a new frontier in the mid-1950's and reading about it is a lot of fun.

Looking forward to the next in the series. show less

After starting their risky venture of a private forensic consultancy, Dr. Richard Pryor and Angela Bray have become firmly established. An apparent bizarre suicide in a remote Welsh farm starts them on a new investigation, which is followed by an unusual request from the War Office.