If you're like me and have a strong interest in all aspects of true crime, then you owe it to yourself to learn more about the fascinating woman profiled in 18 Tiny Deaths. Yes, that's right; a woman is largely responsible for sparking the entire concept of modern criminal forensics. Without her innovative insight, there would probably be many, many more unsolved murders today. This book was a good read that answered many things I've wondered about for a long time. Highly recommended for true crime buffs!

This is a biography of Frances Glessner Lee. She brought about the more modern era of forensics, and some of her techniques are still used today. Her ambition in this field in a time when women being in this field was non-existent. She had to fight everyone for everything she got and got to do. She is best known for her little dioramas that depicted violent deaths, as they called homicides than, and using these dioramas to teach crime scene investigation to police officers.

This was a very interesting book it took me right back to my crime scene investigation class, where we still did crime scene mock ups. This book was well written and come at a time when woman are finally being credited with all the things they actually did back when it wasn't spoken of. It was a really good non-fiction book.

This review will appear on my blog on Feb 4th.

18 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics by Bruce Goldfarb isn't quite what I was expecting, but still an intriguing read. It does take a while to get going and it does go off on quite a few tangents, but it's still intriguing if you're mostly in it for Lee's work. I can definitely say that I'll have to watch the movie Mystery Street directed by John Sturges though that's for sure since it's connection to true events.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley..

This would be a good read by any fan of true crime. Informative and interesting.

Frances Glessner Lee Is an amazing woman who forever changed forensic science. This is a must read for anyone who loves the science behind finding a killer and how much it has changed over time.
I couldn’t put this book down and sad to stay if it wasn’t for this book I wouldn’t have known anything about her or her accomplishments.

I was given this Arc book via Net Galley and the publisher for an honest review. Many Thanks!
4 stars
#NetGalley #18tinydeaths

Suffice it to say that medical forensic science would not be where it is today without the efforts of this determined woman to get Harvard to explore the intersection between medicine and criminal justice. This detailed and well-organized book is a must-read for anyone who is interested in or is a criminal justice investigator.

True crime lovers, whether movies or books, undoubtedly owe a huge debt to Frances Glasner Lee. Her place in the history books was secured when she devoted her life and considerable resources to the advancement of forensic science. Bruce Goldfarb has given us many new details on her life and included pictures and resources that make the story memorable. My book club has nominated this book for further review. What an extraordinary biography of this extraordinary woman.

I'd heard of this book through the Criminal broads podcast (episode #34, as per Danielle’s recommendation) when I stumbled upon this very title on Netgalley. I'm all for science criminal TV shows, and so I was really enthusiastic. The 18 tiny deaths of the title refer to miniature doll houses representing realist and existing crime scenes, complete with victim, blood and tiny clues, that were designed to train policemen into investigating crimes and pay attention to forensic clues.

At least, that's what I understood from the podcast, because at 55% into the book it hadn't even started speaking about them. The title of the book is highly misleading. The real content of the book is the subtitle. It's really about Frances Glessner Lee, an American heiress who as an empty nester developed a consuming passion for forensic science. She met by chance Boston's first medical examiner and this encounter really changed her life. She became her (platonic) friend and benefactor, and she wanted to develop forensic science, as opposed to the prevalent coroner system, inherited from the British tradition, and that had turned into corruption and incompetency. At the beginning of the century she had been unable to go and study at Harvard when her brother and male friends had gone, and so she endeavored to throw money at Harvard so that there would be a forensic science lab and library and top-notch facilities.

Despite the detailed research of the writer, I couldn't quite comprehend why Lee got so passionate about forensic science. It seemed so random and out-of-the-blue to me. The explanation the book gives didn't quite convince me. So from that moment on, the book kind of annoyed me, all the more as I was waiting for the 18 tiny crime scenes to appear and they didn't.

The last straw for me was a passing remark that during WW2, government officials didn't take the time to meet with Lee and listen to all her improvement plans for the judiciary institution. Insert major eye roll here. Yes, I get it, it would have been so much better if coroners had been abolished earlier. But, duh, maybe there was a war on, you know, and maybe they were busy with other topics.

Maybe the remaining 45% are great and I'm missing out. I am on the fence because despite my annoyance Lee is clearly a woman who pushed her ideas forward into a men's world and knew how to convince and influence (money helped quite a lot). But my TBR list is too long, and this book is not for me.

18 Tiny Deaths is a truly fantastic and interesting book. Anyone interested in forensic science or true crime should read this book.

This was definitely interesting for a true crime nerd but it read more like a textbook than anything and that threw me off unfortunately.

18 Tiny Deaths is a biography and history retelling of the life of Frances Glessner Lee and the origins of modern forensic medicine. Due out 4th Feb 2020 from Sourcebooks, it's 336 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats.

This is a fascinating and meticulously researched look at a previously unfamiliar (to me) pioneer in the field of forensics by Bruce Goldfarb. The biography covers her early upbringing as a child of a very wealthy family and her early interest in medicine (Harvard medical was not an option, since she was female, no matter how wealthy and well favored she was). The book includes exhaustive annotations and links as well as a generous number of pertinent period photographs. There is a wealth of material for further reading included in the notes. There is a prodigious amount of minutiae included in the text which can be a trifle overwhelming. I found it interesting both from a scientific and cultural point of view. Despite being from the wealthiest stratum of society, she was constrained in her educational choices, her career outlooks and work.

It's unclear from the publishing info available online, but the eARC I received has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references. I hope the ebook release version does also. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. Presumably that feature will carry through to the final release version.

This would be a good choice for readers of true crime, history, forensics, and biography.

Five stars, a worthy biography of a subject who should have more public recognition.

The subject of this book, Frances Lee, is effectively the founder of modern forensic science. As an aside, immediately upon starting this book, I realized the subject's work was the inspiration for the television series CSI's 'miniature killer' character. This book was exceptionally interesting & informative, though the storyline seemed to jump around a bit, making it difficult to follow at certain points. It also became mired in minute details which made the book seem to drag on unnecessarily. In all, I enjoyed the story of Ms. Lee's life & pursuit of forensic science, & would recommend it to others.

An utterly absorbing account of Frances Lee, a wealthy society woman who became fascinated with early forensic science and assisted in developing the medical examiner system in the US, while also creating a library for the study of "legal medicine," as it was known, and for making numerous, painstakingly-detailed dioramas of death scenes for investigators to learn from.

***4.75 stars***

"… forensics science - the application of medicine to matters of law and justice."

Frances Glessner Lee is a familiar name to any true crime fans, especially forensics aficionados. She was the first female captain in US after being commissioned by the New Hampshire State Police in 1943, and was known as the "mother of forensic science", spending most of her life educating, reforming and teaching medical and law officers about the importance and credibility of forensic science or legal medicine as it was known back then. Perhaps she was most well-known for her true crime scene dioramas she created in dollhouse scale known as the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death which were used as training material and is still used in forensic seminars today.

18 Tiny Deaths details Lee's remarkable story and her relentless effort and endless contributions to legal medicine/forensic science. The author did an excellent in-depth research as this book is replete with facts and true crime stories which were intriguing. I enjoyed Lee's background story which was pivotal to her work and contributions to legal medicine/forensic science later on in her life. I learnt about George Burgess Magrath, a medical examiner, who was the one to inspire Lee in this field. This book also talks about the history of coroner system which was a notoriously corrupt practice back then, wrongly convicted many innocent lives.

Overall, this is a must read if forensic science is something you enjoy. I enjoyed the history part, true crime cases (albeit not long) and how Lee managed to revolutionize the legal medicine or forensic science we have today. It's insightful and entertaining.

Favourite quotes/sayings by Frances Glessner Lee:

"Legal Medicine may be likened to a three-legged stool, the three legs being medicine, the law and the police. If any one of these is weak, the stool will collapse."

"It must be understood, these models are not 'whodunits' - they cannot be solved merely by looking at them," Lee said. "They are intended to be an exercise in observing, interpreting, evaluating and reporting."

"The cocktail hour has come to be important time with me - not for the liquor, but for the pause, the relaxation, the daintiness and pettiness of the service,"


***I received a complimentary digital copy of this book from SOURCEBOOKS (non-fiction) through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All views expressed in this review are my own and was not influenced by the author, publisher or any third party.***

I love all things related to forensic science - books and shows alike. And some how the shows had made me think that the reality is pretty advanced too. This book shows how ignorant I have been to the present stage and overall growth of this field. As much as it is a really just portrayal of Lee's life and her struggles with the system , it also has so much historical and cultural references all over the book. It is a little dry , to the fact book but not too much once you get into the flow of the subject matter. The opening chapters about her early life were a little too long for me.

What an insprirational woman! Frances Glessner Lee was a woman who knew what needed to be done and did it. She was fascinated with forensic science and worked to bring understanding and respect to the subject. Her dioramas of death were her life's work, and they are still maintained and studied today.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
This book is a great history of the "medico-legal" subject. A lot of research went into this. It's a fascinating look at not only Frances Glessner Lee but also George Magrath and others who helped Lee shape what is now known as forensic science. I think this subject is definitely underrated in the true crime genre so I highly recommend this book.

Exactly as the title says, it is both about Frances Glessner Lee and her life, and about the invention of "legal medicine" as a field of study. There's quite a lot of intersection, but if you are reading for one or the other you might not like what you consider digressions. I felt like the background into Lee's life was important to set the stage of her class and the pattern of noblesse oblige while also showing why she couldn't get into medicine herself. (Important to note the noblesse oblige vs charity because of Harvard not seeing the value in things like her lavish suppers, while she was attempting to increase the prestige of homicide detectives, make them more than they were considered, lift the profession. She was very aware of giving them a lot of dignity while they learned)

A little slow to get into at first, which is a problem I generally have with all but the absolute most engaging nonfiction, and while this is probably more like a 4 star read compared to my usual nonfic reading habits, I'd give a 3 stars overall. Some of the sentences are choppy and there is a lot of repetition, possibly because this was a review copy, or possibly because there are a lot of school and program titles and they may have style guides that require the proper name every time, with Goldfarb rewording it more simply afterwards.

I was given a review copy to read through NetGalley, and I did not allow that to change my review in any way.

I've been fascinated by the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death but knew nothing about their creator other than her name. The author takes you through Frances Glessner Lee's life - including background on her parents - so the reader sees how she was inspired to create this great tool for death investigations. Early on, she lived a life of privilege and seemed to be searching for something to give back to society & found it in what would normally be the twilight of her life. Great book about an interesting figure and her incredible creations.

There was a time in history when women were not allowed in medical schools and were not allowed into science in general. This book is the true history of one extraordinary women who both defied the norms and propelled forensic science and murder investigations into the future.

This book is a look into both the science of forensics, past and present and into the life and mind of a brilliant women. While I learned from the forensic aspect of this book, I think I enjoyed the woman behind it even more. She used small miniature scale crime scenes to help visualize the crime and as a way to understand how different aspects affect each other.

The way her brain worked and how the discipline progressed is an amazing journey into history. I loved every aspect of this book and highly recommend it. I received an ARC via NetGallery and I am leaving an honest review.