truepenny | Review: Hallcox & Welch, Bodies We've Buried

Bodies We've Buried: Inside the National Forensic Academy, the World's Top CSI Training School by Jarrett Hallcox

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm going to be perfectly honest. I did not like this book.

There's nothing wrong with it, per se, and I was very interested in its subject matter: the National Forensic Academy's 10 week CSI training program. But I developed a dislike for the authors on about page 3 and it never went away.

I want to differentiate between the authors as human beings, the flesh-and-blood people Jarrett Hallcox and Amy Welch, whom I have never met, and the authors as they present themselves (and it's "we" throughout, not Hallcox and Welch, but Hallcox-and-Welch) in the book. I don't know anything about the flesh and blood people--who by the evidence of material that made it possible for them to write this book are in fact fantastic at their job--I'm only talking about the author-construct. And I disliked the author-construct intensely by the time I was done.

They're too pleased with themselves. "Smarmy" is a harsh word, but it's not wrong. They try to be funny and mostly fail, because humor is extremely hard. There's a feeling throughout of LOOK AT US! AREN'T WE COOL! that rubbed me violently the wrong way.

So if you want to know what CSI training looks like, this is an in-depth and in fact thoughtful discussion of what and how they spend ten weeks teaching their students to do. I just wish I liked it better.

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