Marc's A-Z of Crime Fiction

I am going to do a weekly post counting down from A-Z and thinking of some important components to Crime Fiction within each letter of the alphabet.

Rules of my blogs will be two components:
1 Key Components in Crime Fiction 
2 An author or a book beginning with the letter.

ANTHROPOLOGY

This may not be a natural letter A for many crime writers but for me it is an essential one.

I studied Forensic Science at University and this is the one subject that stood out for me, I have continued to read and download journals, websites are read and I try to search for books that have some fictional or factual bones within them.

Looking at Forensic Anthropology in Crime Fiction, there are lots of examples starting with books: Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwell (who probably started the obsession with "The Body Farm"). TV has had Bones (inspired by Kathy Reichs books), Waking the Dead. In both cases, the list are endless depending on the amount of research you do!

Forensic Anthropology as a subject what does it entail. Well, putting it simply, it means the STUDYING THE BONES OF THE PERSON WHO DIED. Breaking the subject down further, it is similar to Pathology, the study of a person before skeletonisation. The Key Areas of Forensic Anthropology:

• Identification - Height, Age, Sex and ancestry using growth patterns on bones, unique markers and size of bones.
• Cause of death - trauma, disease, previous injuries.

ARRESTS

"You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence, if you fail to mention, when questioned, something which you may later rely on in court. Anything you do say, may be given in evidence"

The Police Arrest Caution, we hear it all the time on TV, Films, Documentaries, Books. This is the key to understanding when someone has been arrested and they are going to be questioned for an offence they have committed.

The Caution has two purposes: Allow the person to answer any questions that have been asked but also the silences or no comments are also going to be used against them if they wish to do so.

The definition of Arrest:  the act of depriving a person of his or her liberty usually in relation to the purported investigation and prevention of crime and presenting into the criminal justice system.

ANDREW GROSS: http://www.andrewgrossbooks.com/

This is one front cover from Andrew Gross. Andrew Gross has been writing as an individual now for three books before this he co-wrote with James Patterson on six books in seven years.

Andrew Gross has now invented his character, Detective Ty Hauck, the head of some local detectives in New York. In RECKLESS, Ty Hauck has left the NYPD.

I can only comment on RECKLESS as it is the only book I have read by GROSS since his split with PATTERSON.

SYNOPSIS:

Ty Hauck has left law enforcement for a job with a big-time private security firm. But he quickly learns that life in the private sector can be every bit as dangerous as wearing a badge - if not more so. When a successful trader at one of Wall Street's largest firms is murdered his suburban home along with his wife and daughter, it seems at first to be a case of burglary gone wrong. Then another financial executive is found dead in a very suspicious 'suicide'. As Hauck digs deeper he uncovers a horrifying financial conspiracy that stretches from New York to Central Europe to London. And the masterminds behind it will kill anyone who gets in their way!

REVIEW:

I found the book to be a good read as it broke down the recent collapses of the leading World banks AIG and others and I could understand them more from this than the media circus that we read everyday.

On the side of reading and analysing the writing, I found it be a difficult read and the overall flow of the book was let down by the speech always referring to characters in the speech themselves instead of the tried and trusted methods. There seemed to be bits of the story missing and through this we are constantly jumping along instead of strolling through the book, the fast paced nature of the book on top of the missing plot gives the impression of bouncing.