According to the Evidence

By Bernard Knight

A forensic mystery of the 1950s - After starting their risky venture of a private forensic consultancy, Doctor Richard Pryor – now a Home Office pathologist – and forensic biologist Angela Bray have now become firmly established. An apparent bizarre suicide in a remote Welsh farm starts them on a new investigation, which is followed by an unusual request from the War Office. And when a Cotswold veterinary surgeon is charged with poisoning his ailing wife, can Pryor’s expert evidence save him from the gallows?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Severn House Publishers
• Release date: Aug 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781780101163

Bernard Knight

Bernard Knight is a retired Home Office pathologist renowned for his work on such high-profile cases as the Fred and Rosemary West murders. Bernard is the author of the ‘Crowner John’ series, as well as the Dr Richard Pryor forensic mystery series.

Reviews for According to the Evidence

[bookswoman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Richard Pryor and his "team" are working in Wales on forensic medicine in the 1950's. Richard gets called out to various unattended deaths or to suspicious deaths to perform autopsies, as well as routine post-mortems when the attending physicians or local coroner is away. His team consists of another doctor, Angela, who does the biological/blood work, a lab assistant who works with all the fancy new machinery and a secretary/housekeeper.

Three different cases are looked at in this book, a possible murder by a veterinarian of his dying spouse, a death that first looks like an accident, then a military case that was deemed an accident but a widow believes it was murder.

The most interesting thing about these books is the science around forensics. We are so used to DNA and fingerprints and all the sciences used to examine a dead body that we forget how new most of that science is. Yes, there were fingerprints back then but they had to be compared by hand to fingerprint cards and those cards were few and far between. The study of the body chemistry and how it breaks down and how fast (or slow) it happens was a new frontier in the mid-1950's and reading about it is a lot of fun.

Looking forward to the next in the series.

[henrimoreaux · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This, the second book in the Richard Pryor series, is a strong sequel to the first.Deliciously authentic 1950s forensic pathology with a touch of police investigation and court process. We also see the 50s-esque sexual tension bloom between Dr Pryor, Moira Davidson & Dr Angela Bray, all of which looks like it may very well peak in the third coming novel.A great read, but maybe not for everyone.

[rhodonite_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Bit disappointed as not a detective novel in the sense that I have become used to. Once I realised that, it was an interesting look at 1950's British forensic work. It also gave great insight into the importance of home cooking & how excessive the diet of the characters was!! I felt the author was rather obsessed with the great detail of virtually every meal. However, it may reflect 1950's Britain, when post war food wasn't rationed & explain how our ever expanding waist lines started!

[juglicerr · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, finding the plot interesting; the characters likeable, if not deeply developed; and the look at the 1950s, both in terms of forensics and social issues fascinating. I was a small child in the 1950s, and this reminds me of things that I have forgotten, like the single use bulbs for flash pictures, and bringing back memories, like the “miracle” of photocopiers. It is amazing that technology that was new and dazzling when I was young is now completely obsolete. For younger readers, it can serve as an historical novel. Knight is skillful in how he weaves in these details, showing rather than telling. He doesn't tell us in a narrative voice that photocopiers are just being developed. Instead, he has a character lament that the library that he was using doesn't have one of these machines, and hence he has to copy all the information out in longhand.As to the character develop, these are relatively happy, confident people who have had their problems, but are getting on with their lives. I don't think that I can bear to read about yet another divorced, alienated, alcoholic, chain-smoking, angst-ridden detective, if that's what people mean by character development.This is not a mystery in the usual sense, although one case bookends the story. Instead, a number of cases are woven together as simultaneous subplots. The interest is in the forensics that were available at the time. No DNA analysis to determine paternity, one had to rely on blood tests which might rule out a man, but couldn't prove if he was the actual father. There are other subplots, like Richard's determination to grow wine grapes, and of course the possibility of romance with one of the women he works with, that will presumably continue through later books.