The first book in the Dr Richard Pryor series, 2010

I would like to thank fellow crime writers Brian Innes and Michael Jecks for information on forensic chemistry, document examination and weapons; Judge John Prosser QC for some advice on legal history; Dr Wayne Jones of Linköping University, Sweden, and Professor Derrick Pounder of Dundee University for historical data on toxicological analysis – and Peter Haig and Jeremy Wills of Molyslip Atlantic Ltd for information on lubrication additives. Any errors are due to my misinterpretation of their kind assistance.

In this tale of crime and detection, you will find no mention of CSI, DNA, SOCOS, PCA, PCR, PACE, CPS, HOLMES, FME or any of the endless forensic acronyms, as the action is deliberately placed in 1955. This was the year the author first became a pathologist and is a blatant piece of nostalgia, though the era has now become very popular in books, radio and television, possibly as a form of escapism.

To write an authentic crime novel nowadays, one has to defer to Health and Safety Regulations, Crime Scene Managers, Team Initiatives, Mission Statements, Human Tissue Act, Data Protection Act, Home Office Directives and all the depressing panoply of the bureaucratic Nanny State and political correctness.

Maybe our overcrowded world now needs these Orwellian strictures, but the stress levels were far less fifty years ago, when a trilby-wearing detective inspector in a belted raincoat could lean against the autopsy table with a fag and a mug of Typhoo Tips and chat to the pathologist about last Saturday’s game!

Though the geography is authentic, considerable trouble has been taken to make all the characters and situations totally fictitious.