I don’t know about Locard’s “Every Contact Leaves a Trace”, every contact with this book will certainly leave an impression, and a big one.
Jo Ward is one of the UK’s top Police Forensic Practitioners. Working in the West Midlands there is no end to the types of crime and levels of violence she has encountered.
This book is a brutally honest memoir of not only some of Jo’s landmark crimes, the ones that really sit in the front of the memory, but also on the mental and physical toll it took on her body and mind.
She starts by describing the shy, sports obsessed teenager that grew up in Halesowen, and takes the reader on a roller coaster journey of emotions of her trying to find her place.
Like most people who are good at their job, Jo is obsessively dedicated, and from before she even became a Crime Scene Investigator she ensured that she was ready for the job. let’s face it not everybody would visit a morgue and watch a Post Mortem just to make sure they could handle being around dead bodies.
Once in post she describes her journey via the incidents she remembers. For those of us living in the West Midlands most of them will trigger a memory. For those outside the area there are some that made national news., all of them are intriguing.
All of them are described in a deep manner, no holds are barred. The narrative takes the reader straight to the scene and makes it easy to picture.
The uniqueness of this book is that we also go inside Jo’s mind. Other books have looked at the thought process the Investigator goes through, but this book goes one step further.
That is where the brutal honesty comes in. This is where she looks at the psychological effect that the incidents are having on her.
It doesn’t end there.
Carrying on with the “no filters” honesty she looks at how the build up, and gradual over exposure to some of the most horrific incidents, led to her being diagnosed with PTSD. She talks about the incident which was the straw that broke the camels back.
She talks about how she deals with it, and is still dealing with it.
The impact her work has had on her family is covered it’s equal honesty.
She also looks at the way the investigation of crime is changing. The cutting back of officers, and forensic teams has led to an even deeper exposure. Less personnel covering more of the worst incidents.
The pressure of keeping up with all of the advances in forensic science.
Most cases that reach the court see a big reliance on the Forensic evidence. Jo takes us to one of these hearings and shows he pressure of being the witness under cross examination.
I was thinking as I was reading this book that it should be a book every True Crime, and Crime Fiction reader should read, but I’d go beyond that. I’d say it’s a book everybody who writes about crime should read. Whether it’s factual or fiction, if you want to know what it’s really like to be a Crime Scene Investigator you have to read this book.
More importantly, if you ever aspire to working in this field, and want to know what it’s really like, this is quite simply a must read.
Quite simply one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read.
Pages: 221. Publisher: Aurum. Audiobook length: 7 hours 18 minutes. Narrator Sarah Thom
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