52
Book Club
Murder Most Florid: Inside the Mind of a Forensic Botanist
Garden
(Spencer, Mark; Quadrille, 2019)
Reviewer: Kyra Pollitt Family lore has it that, on hearing a siren, my great aunt Edie would lift her skirts and chase off after it, sparks flying from her clogs. Ostensibly rushing to offer help, it was widely suspected that she was merely feeding an insatiable fascination with the morbid. I may have inherited the gene. I’m a huge fan of Scandi-noir, most kinds of detective fiction and confess to scanning the news for curious incidents of criminality. So Dr. Mark Spencer’s account of his work as a forensic botanist leapt out from a list of book titles. Promising chapters like ‘The Case of the Scabby Ankle’, who could resist? Spencer was working as curator of the British and Irish herbarium at the Natural History Museum when the call came. The book charts his journey from initially helping the police assess how long a badly decomposed body had lain in brambles, to the realisation that botany has much to offer the science of forensics, to exploring the strengths and limitations of this new practice, and the frustrations of persuading swarthy, hardened SOCIs* of its worth. The reader gets a clear sense of the emerging practice of forensic botany; the grim corporeality of decomposition, the drudge of long hours in the cold and rain painstakingly studying unglamourous ditches, the challenges and joys of working in impromptu teams, the battle to educate, the relief of finding a supportive colleague. As a good botanist, Spencer details many of the plants that fall under his hand lens, giving their Latin binomials, discussing their behaviours, and listing the traits that render them useful to crimefighting. This is very satisfying. We feel his despair when he is called to a crime scene, only to find “the police have cut down most of the vegetation and raked it into piles” (p.3).
Less satisfying, though understandable, is his inability to discuss many of the cases in any depth. Neither is Spencer a natural raconteur— no David Sedaris of the plant world —but he does have something interesting to tell. One suspects a slightly nervous publisher, unsure where this book’s market might lie. Quadrille might have a little more faith in the subject matter, and also invest in a more thorough edit and proof. In my hardback copy (retailing at £16.99) page 130— the climax of how mushroom spores were crucial in resolving a rape case— is missing in its entirety: The fungal spores from the woodland were particularly distinctive and strongly supported the proposition that both the victim and the suspect had been in woodland. On being presented We’ll never know how the rapist responded. Frustrating, isn’t it? Spencer’s next book, and I hope there is one, should benefit from a greater depth of experience in the field, more adept navigation of the strictures of police confidentiality, clearer intent in writing style, and confidence in its market. We are out here, and we do like this.
*Scene of Crime Investigation
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