Carla Valentine helps us admire Agatha Christie all the more.

Valentine is a pathologist — she even runs a dating site for people in her profession called Dead Meet — and the author of “The Science of Murder: The Forensics of Agatha Christie” (2021). She is also a longtime Christie fan.

She enjoys the mysteries themselves, just like the rest of us do, adding, "But when I first began reading her books as a child, it was the many clues she provided about dead bodies — the blood, wounds, and confusing decomposition artifacts — that I found the most ingenious, and this cemented the love of forensic pathology that would go on to shape my whole life."

Christie learned much about blood and wounds when she worked as a nurse during both world wars. Mostly, however, she was just a good student who read medical journals, questioned experts and worked hard to stay on top of the latest developments in crime solving.

Valentine points out how her stories reflect her growing knowledge about such things as fingerprints and trace evidence and how these are used to solve crimes. In her early books, Christie didn't seem to know the difference between a revolver and an automatic handgun, yet she learned, just as she learned about poisons, autopsies, handwriting analysis, blood spatter and all the rest.

Speaking of blood spatter, Valentine points out the difference between blood spatter and blood splatter and also between blood that spouts and blood that spurts. Christie also knew these differences, and this is clear from her books.

There is actually more blood in Agatha Christie novels than we remember. We tend to associate her with poisonings, something she became an expert on. Yet shootings and stabbings also occur frequently. Valentine provides a Murder Methods Table in the appendix that shows at a glance how victims die in each of her books. In “And Then There Were None,” for example, there is a shooting, a poisoning, a blow to the head, a drowning, an ax murder, a hanging and a person who is crushed to death.

Christie closely followed true crime news and sometimes modeled her plots on these actual events. Other times her characters make reference to these crimes.

Valentine tells us a lot about the use of forensics in solving crimes, both the history and the science, yet she never strays far from Agatha Christie. Thus her book never fails to stay interesting. ( )

3.75 stars. this was a book full of information that i was interested to learn, but that i probably never would have picked up and wanted to read if it wasn't presented in the way that it was. i really appreciate the way that she did this - taking us through the history of forensics and the development of the science using agatha christie's books and short stories. i think i'd appreciate this even more if i were more familiar with christie's books (i've only read a few) but it was really fun to go through the history through her characters and stories. to see how things changed or what was learned and made it into her books. it was clear that christie was a student of forensics and the news, and really tried to make sure that she was being scientifically accurate as much as possible.

valentine did a pretty good job keeping spoilers out, although i would have preferred names or a few key words to be redacted. but by the time i read the christie books i'm sure i'll have forgotten anything pertinent. (i probably already have, honestly.) and she definitely avoided major spoilers.

i thought the christie books i've read were fine, but i wasn't particularly impressed by her. after reading this book, i think she might have been a genius. and carla valentine did a great job in educating me about different aspects of forensics while making me really excited to read more christie.

great book and probably one to keep referring to, as i'm sure i'll forget specifics about guns and poisons and trace evidence.

for some reason this really impressed on me: "...in the early 1940's, Christie had written Curtain, which was to be the last book to feature Poirot and Hastings. (Fearing that the war might put an end to her and her writing career, she wanted to give Poirot fans closure, so she wrote this final chapter in their adventures - along with her "final" Miss Marple book, written for the same reason - and both were sealed in a bank vault until publication in 1975 and 1976, respectively. In the interim, she produced many more books featuring both Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot but was always safe in the knowledge that should something happen to her, their endings were already recorded.)" ( )

My favorite aunt had the entire collection of Christie's novels. Christie and Grafton were her two reading passions. As a preteen she was the one who introduced me to this authors books. Despite that I've still read too few of this prolific authors works. This book made me want to seek her out again.

The author does a super job of describing the history of developments in crime detection and showing the reader how these were used by Christie's detectives. Never knew there were so many ways to take fingerprints. We live in an age where so many of these are common, but easier crime solving was a much bigger challenge. Christie's books were so popular because she herself had an avid interest on and kept up with the latest techniques and used them realistically in her novels. History, true crime, science and fiction all meet up in this interesting book. ( )

The Science of Murder by Carla Valentine is a 2022 Sourcebooks publication.

If you love crime fiction, forensics, Agatha Christie, True Crime, history or science- you need to read this book!

I have always considered Agatha Christie's mysteries groundbreaking. This book proves me right as we look at the way Christie incorporated forensic detecting in her books, with accuracy, foreshadowing the day when forensics would become a crime genre of its very own and terms like 'trace evidence' would be commonly used- not only by authors, detectives, and scientist- but by the general population, as well.

The author is very careful not to give way any spoilers- which occasionally hampers her ability to do a deeper dive- and was occasionally frustrating- but a wise decision, nonetheless.

You don’t have to be a Christie aficionado to enjoy this book- though you might want to read - or re-read her mysteries after finishing this book!

The author discusses fingerprints, blood spatter, footprint analysis, time of death, and trace evidence- all of which have a place in Christie's books- including Miss Marple, Tuppance and Tommy, as well as Peroit.

Christie researched and studied the science behind murder investigations and detecting- Which occasionally seemed inspired by true crime cases- and the author compares those cases here.

The book does suffer some presentation issues and sometimes it can be dry reading- so I’ll admit I did some skimming here and there because I found myself zoning out on occasion.

Otherwise, I’m even more impressed with Christie’s hard work in studying true crime cases, her knowledge of poisons, and how involved she became in crime solving to make her novels as authentic as possible.

I also think it is worth noting that while many dismiss Christie’s novels as ‘cozies’, just because she didn’t go into explicit or gruesome details, preferring the psychological and technical observations of her chosen sleuths, she doesn’t shy away from dark themes, organized crime, or the horrific motives and methods of murder.

Overall, an interesting topic and mish- mash, of biographical information on Christie, true crime cases, and history while connecting Christie’s work to the future of the science of detecting we take for granted today.

3.5 stars ( )