Keep track of the books you’re reading and the movies you’re watching this summer and become eligible for prizes during the 2014 Adult Summer Reading Program. It’s easy; just pick up a reading log at the Lititz Public Library.
Forensic identification page-turners and DVDs highlight this summer’s theme, Literary Elements, featuring all things scientific.
The Girl with the Crooked Nose: A Tale of Murder, Obsession and Forensic Artistry by Ted Botha (Nonfiction)
Artist Frank Bender reconstructs murder victims’ faces from their decomposed and skeletal remains, providing police with reliable information to pursue murderers.
Bones (DVD)
A forensic anthropologist and an FBI agent build a team to investigate suspicious deaths.
Murder on the Home Front: A True Story of Morgues, Murderers and Mysteries During the London Blitz by Molly Lefebure (Nonfiction)
While war raged in 1941, the author became secretary to forensic pathologist Dr. Keith Simpson, traveling with him as he uncovered clues at crime scenes.
Forensics on Trial (DVD)
Nova investigates the gap between the glamorous television world of CSI and the reality of the forensic crime lab and how modern forensics can send innocent men and women to prison.
The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum (Nonfiction)
During the 1920s, New York City’s first forensic scientists investigated poisoning cases, including a family’s inexplicable balding, Barnum and Bailey’s Blue Man and the crumbling bones of factory workers.
How Sherlock Changed the World (DVD)
Based on a real surgeon, the literary Holmes was a scientist who used chemistry, bloodstains and minute traces of evidence to solve crimes.
Who Killed King Tut?: Using Modern Forensics to Solve a 3,300-Year-Old Mystery by Michael R. King and Gregory M. Cooper (Nonfiction)
Two law enforcements specialists in forensics and the psychology of criminal behavior present their theory about who murdered Egypt’s most famous pharaoh.
Following Antigone (DVD)
Since 1984, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team and similar groups have helped families of human rights victims to find, identify and bury the remnants of their loves ones using the application of forensic science.
The Inheritor’s Powder: A Tale of Arsenic, Murder and the New Forensic Science by Sandra Hempel (Nonfiction)
The infamous murder case of wealthy George Bodie in November 1833, led to the birth of modern toxicology and the origins of forensic science.
Forensic Files (DVD)
Documentary series explores how a variety of crimes were solved using forensic science.
Forensics and Fiction: Clever, Intriguing and Downright Odd Questions from Crime Writers by D.P. Lyle (Nonfiction)
The author answers medical and forensic questions about such topics about doctors and hospitals, poisons and drugs, police and the crime scene, coroners and autopsies, traumatic injuries and illnesses and the crime lab.
Quincy, M.E. (DVD)
A coroner investigates suspicious deaths that usually suggest murder.
Death and the Virgin Queen: Elizabeth I and the Dark Scandal That Rocked the Throne by Chris Skidmore (Nonfiction)
Recently discovered forensic evidence reveals what probably occurred in the 1560 death of Robert Dudley’s wife and the ensuing scandal and inquest that threatened Elizabeth I’s throne.
Mystery Street (DVD)
A skeleton is found on a lonely Cape Cod beach and a police lieutenant must work back from the bones to find the victim’s identity and killer.
Originally published on May 30, 2014 in the Lititz Record Express.