What the Corpse Revealed: Murder and the Science of Forensic Detection, by Hugh Miller

St. Martin's Press, 242 pages, $23.95

Remember those brainteaser mysteries that kids would pose to one another at camp? The ones where a guy is found dead in an empty field with a wet head and no socks on, or some such weirdness, and you have to figure out who or what brought on his demise?

The cases in Hugh Miller's What the Corpse Revealed -- an engrossing collection of 16 seemingly unsolvable crimes that were eventually cracked using forensic evidence -- are just like those brainteasers. In each case, a crime appears to be something it is not, until the cops make way for the lab coats. These grim, methodical inquisitors poke around and eventually find the telltale fibers or chemicals, along the way unearthing boiled bodies, bullets made out of meat, and other grisly leavings.

Miller, who has written extensively on forensics, treats each case as a mini oral history, and the voices we hear are nearly always those of the investigating detectives and scientists. Aside from the occasional fleshing out of a scientific detail, Miller himself stays out of the way -- too far out of the way at times, as when the policemen lapse into generic cop-speak. One investigator calls a case "so unreal you could have made a musical about it"; another cop says to a suspect, "So, the summing up is, you shot the Conroys in cold blood, while they were unconscious on their couch." The tales are clearly the selling point here, not the telling.

One pleasant mainstay from chapter to chapter is the decidedly low-tech sleuthing involved: almost every case is solved through nothing more than basic scientific know-how, elbow grease (you can't get much more hands-on than an investigator turning a set of boneless, muscleless fingers into a grisly pair of gloves, stretching them over his own to get fingerprints), and a bit of ingenuity. In fact, Miller maintains that high-tech DNA testing is still far from a sure thing, enumerating all the various criteria that must be precisely met before it can be used.

Miller shows impressive restraint in several morbid cases, bringing up only what is germane to the investigation. Still, the time and explicitness devoted to sexual abuse and torture may be a bit much for some readers. (Vigilantism plays a major role here, with several cases turning out to be retribution for heinous crimes committed in the past. Two particularly ingenious sets of multiple killings were provoked by the rape or murder of loved ones.)

A certain predictability sets in early on: everybody has the wrong first impression about each crime until a chance discovery leads to new evidence and finally a gory confession. The overall similarity detracts from the appeal of each individual chapter, but the book as a whole serves as an entertaining primer on how these modern-day Sherlock Holmeses crack even the toughest cases. If nothing else, What the Corpse Revealed does what any good procedural should -- it reminds us how imperfect the "perfect crime" usually is.

-- Eric Grode