THE CRIME WRITER'S HANDBOOK
Douglas Wynn
Published by Allison & Busby
paperback, £8.99
ISBN 0-74900-345-6
Review by Jean Currie
"65 ways to kill your victim - in print" is the promise made by Douglas Wynn in his book, but he does more than that. It covers every aspect: methods of murder and of detection including forensic medicine, police procedure and interviewing, confessions, evidence, serial killers, jury system and much more.
The layout is easy to follow with entries in alphabetical order, the first in the METHODS OF MURDER section being ACCIDENTS, followed by ANIMALS and so on. There is one page for each and under the heading ACCIDENTS (CONTRIVED), for instance, marks out of ten are given to AVAILABILITY of the method to a murderer, EFFECTIVENESS and DETECTABILITY. Examples of "accidents" include warnings to the unwary fiction writer. (Did you know forensic experts can detect a faked road accident?) The page ends with cases from real life and from fiction.
Where a weapon is used, the author gives his opinion of how available it might be, how effective and how easy to detect. (He even tells us which method doesn't work - the ice bullet.) If you fancy killing your victim by means of a sting or bite from poisonous fish, you would first have to lure her to the Pacific or perhaps the Red Sea. On the other hand, if you could bear to watch her die through respiratory paralysis and convulsions, you could feed her Pufferfish. (Did you know there was an attempt on Captain Cook's life in 1774 when natives offered him Pufferfish?)
It's all there, every detail of how the victim dies and how long it takes.
You might think a simple method of murder would be defenestration - pushing somebody from a high window or balcony or from the roof of a building, but it seems that the police have ways of finding out if she fell or was pushed. (Did you know that somebody who lands upright might survive after a fall of up to 100 feet?)
Fictional crime demands a body, but the murderer might try to get rid of the evidence and yet be discovered. If he sets fire to his unconscious victim in a car, he may think all traces will go up in smoke. Not so. Carbon dioxide in the blood and/or particles of soot in the lungs indicate the person was breathing when the fire started. We have all heard of fingerprints and of DNA but the section, METHODS OF DETECTION, includes less well known ADIPOCERE and VOICE PRINTS.
Lastly, we have OTHER ASPECTS OF CRIME which gives invaluable information for writers of British police procedurals, such as the structure of the police force, the organisation of a murder investigation, arrests and interviewing, evidence, the work of a coroner and the jury system and the way Interpol operates.
With THE CRIME WRITER'S HANDBOOK there is no excuse for slips. I shall certainly keep it on my shelf.
