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| Pic courtesy of Pixabay |
I’m delighted to be a guest on this blog—many thanks to Leye Adenle for letting me have his spot. I’m a long-term fan of crime fiction and a chemist/biologist. I’ve found a way to combine my reading pleasure with my interest in science which I hope will be both interesting and useful.
Perhaps I’m a pedant. Maybe it’s my scientific background. But I do like to see crime writers getting things right! I’ve no problem with alternative realities in science fiction or fantasy where the normal laws of science are broken. But in crime novels, I like to see scientific accuracy and sometimes, alas, mistakes creep in.
Rather than sitting here grumbling, or writing complaining letters to authors like one of the “picky-ass readers” Stephen King has described, I thought it would be useful to help crime writers to avoid some basic, common, scientific mistakes. I set up a website (www.crimewriterscience.co.uk) providing tips on poisons, weapons, explosives and other topics and was then encouraged to develop this into a full-length book. The result is CRIME WRITING: HOW TO WRITE THE SCIENCE, published in the UK by Studymates this month.
The book covers a range of scientific topics relating to crime and assumes no scientific background on the part of the reader. It starts with how poisons work and the effects of specific toxins and dispels some myths along the way (nothing is instant and cyanide does not make you blue, for instance).
It looks at knocking people out (don’t bother with chloroform, and trying to inject someone in the back of the neck to produce instant unconsciousness won’t work either). I cover explosives and fires, without giving too much away as I don’t want to end up charged with assisting terrorism, and I describe the basics of firearms which are often misdescribed by non-U.S. writers (a 38mm handgun, anyone?) or shown inaccurately on screen. Blowing someone backwards through a window with a shotgun while remaining stationary yourself breaks the laws of Newtonian physics (as well as the window) and you can’t actually “silence” a revolver.
Getting rid of a body is not as simple as is sometimes depicted and, despite Dame Agatha’s assertion that Murder is Easy, killing someone is not always that straightforward. Nevertheless, humans are fragile, especially when stabbed or repeatedly bashed over the head, so I try to bring a little biological reality to violence.
DNA transformed detection and I outline the basics but also point out where it can be misleading—the fact that someone left DNA at a crime scene doesn’t mean they are the villain: the when and the how are critical. I mention some exciting developments in forensics and also point out the drawbacks of some long-accepted forensic techniques.
The book isn’t a practical guide for a would-be murderer, divulging arcane secrets from the laboratory which will enable someone to poison a rival with a houseplant or make a bomb from shaving cream and cocktail cherries.
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| Run! Pic courtesy of Pixabay |
I don’t name and shame authors—I respect crime writers too much. But I do point out mistakes I’ve come across without identifying the source. I also point out where someone has got something right (referring to tobacco tar stains rather than nicotine, for instance).
I hope that the book will be useful to crime writers and fascinating to crime readers. If it helps, I’ll be delighted—and I’m happy to assist further if needed.
Brian Price
Brian Price is a chemist and biologist who retired from the Environment Agency in 2016. He is the author of CRIME WRITING: HOW TO WRITE THE SCIENCE and runs a website offering tips on science for crime writers (www.crimewriterscience.co.uk). He is an avid reader of crime fiction and has also written a number of short stories, one of which was a runner up in the Weston-super-Mare Literary Festival 2019 and another was short listed in the Chorley Writers Circle competition in 2018. He taught science and technology courses for the Open University for 26 years. Previous books include P FOR POLLUTION and C FOR CHEMICALS (with Mike Birkin)
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