BOOK OF THE WEEK 9/ 10

Written in Bone by Sue Black, Doubleday, £18.99

Very few academics become “weelkent” faces on TV – but Inverness-born professor Sue Black is undoubtedly one of the f e w. Her i nvolvement a s B r i t a i n ’s b e s t - known forensic anthropologist i n many infamous murder cases has made her a household name. And the bedrock of her expertise is her boundless knowledge of human bones: how they develop and grow in the foetus, child and adolescent, and how they change in adult life and old age.

She shares that knowledge in her intensely readable Written in Bone, in many ways a sequel to her 2018 book, All That Remains. It is a detailed journey from the skull to the toes, and all the bones in between, leavened by stories of cases where her expertise was sought by police forces in Britain and throughout the world. A graduate of Aberdeen University, much of her outstanding work was done at Dundee University.

The stories range from the fascinating to the tragic to the hilarious, all told with style, wit and – considering her global repute – remarkable modesty.

Her book is also a gold mine of little-known facts and background information. For instance, if British fishing vessels bring up a skull or other human remains in their nets, all the fish caught must be thrown back into the sea. Hence she worries that many seabed remains brought to the surface over the years may have gone unreported.

However, one barnacle-encrusted skull did reach her lab, which she ascertained as belonging to a youth aged possibly 17 – but radio-carbon-dating showed it was 700-800 years old and unlikely to interest the police.

And, with cremations largely supplanting burials and people’s bodies acquiring more and more metal inserts – stents and hip joints, plus rods, plates and screws used to repair broken bones, not to mention piercing adornments – careful sifting through postcremation ashes for such metal has become a crucial crematorium procedure.

Written in Bone also provides a revealing insight into the many challenges she faces, from enduring defence lawyers desperate to discredit her evidence to exhuming bodies buried for years, often in the worst of weathers. And, above all, it’s a great read.