Forensic Entomology: An Introduction

Dorothy E. Gennard. Forensic Entomology: An IntroductionJohn Wiley and Sons, Chichester, United Kingdom, 2007224 pp., $55.00 (soft), ISBN: 978-0-470-01479-0 As forensic entomologists, we constantly hear claims that student interest in forensic science is a passing fad. However, a close inspection of past and future needs soon shows that the demand for more and better qualified forensic scientists has been strong and continues to grow. In much the same way, readers sometimes make a cursory scan of a book and dismiss it as light weight or superficial. We made that mistake with Forensic Entomology: An Introduction —we didn’t expect the book to amount to much, but the more we read, the more we found to value. As we have learned yet again, whereas you can judge a blow fly by its puparium, you can’t judge a booklouse by its exoskeleton. Forensic Entomology: An Introduction is not a reference or a manual; it is an introductory undergraduate text. Actually, it could even serve as a supplemental text in some graduate courses …