REVIEW

CRIME SCENE - Esther McKay

Reviewed By
Karen Chisholm

"Day after day my life was consumed by killings, distress and gruesome sites, each one adding another piece to an ever-growing mosaic that seemed to be made up of bloodied disposable gloves, plastic bags and human waste. . ."

I don't think there's any way that Esther McKay could describe her life as a forensic crime investigator in terms that would make it comfortable reading for anybody.  Which means it's no surprise whatsoever that this book is confrontational, difficult and frequently disturbing, just as the job must have been.

McKay has a way of telling the stories that gives the reader more than enough of a feeling for the more gruesome aspects of the crime scenes that she experienced, giving you just enough of the facts to make it obvious how horrendous that work must be, drawing out the personal affect of dealing with not just the nature of the job, but the ridiculous amounts of stress, overtime and pressure involved.

Not an easy read, and I couldn't help but hope that family members of the people caught up in the cases discussed were avoiding this book like the plague, but for the rest of us, this is a real job that somebody does.  You have to hope that education and training levels have improved, you've also got to hope that support and staffing is considerably better than it was when McKay worked in the job, but regardless it's still a dreadful job for anybody to have to do.

BOOK DETAILS
BOOK INFORMATION
Author
ISBN
0670028649
Year of Publication
BLURB

When Esther McKay, an idealistic young constable with the NSW police, entered the tough, male-dominated world of forensic investigation, she was determined to hold her own. She soon found herself at deeply confronting crime scenes, often working alone and without supervision. Her cases ranged from a beautiful young girl macheted to death by her jealous boyfriend to the electrocution of a small child; from the Newcastle earthquake victims to the suicide whose body had liquefied in his car.

Eventually it became too much to bear. After years of long, lonely, exhausting days and nights, and following a particularly harrowing high-profile case involving the disappearance of two young boys, Esther has a breakdown and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. She was discharged from the police force, hurt in the line of duty, and ultimately began a remarkable journey to recovery.

Review CRIME SCENE - Esther McKay
Karen Chisholm
Monday, February 13, 2012
Blog Currently Reading - Crime Scene, Esther McKay
Karen Chisholm
Friday, February 3, 2012

Add new comment

This is a book review site, with no relationship whatsoever with any of the authors mentioned here.

We do not provide a method for you to contact authors for any reason and comments of this nature are automatically deleted.

This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.