CLAY AND BONES

A memoir by the first female “forensic sculptor” in the FBI.

Books by forensic experts—those who use science or art to solve crimes—are a minor genre, but this is a solid addition. Retired FBI forensic artist Bailey loved art but couldn’t afford college. Sharp and hardworking, she sped through Navy technical training and became a graphic artist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, before answering a newspaper ad for an illustrator at the FBI. In 2001, she joined a staff of about 50 full-time (and hundreds of part-time) forensic artists who work at law enforcement agencies across the country. What they produce is not art but evidence, mostly composites (a face reassembled from descriptions and remains) or “age progressions” based on a past photo. The miraculous re-creations by fictional TV forensic artists are often exaggerated, but real-life forensics occasionally solves crimes, and the accounts of cases always make for compelling reading. Bailey developed an interest in producing an accurate human face from a naked skull, often from long-dead remains. Although familiar to veteran whodunit readers, the reality of such reconstructions is far more complex, requiring an encyclopedic knowledge of a skull’s innumerable muscles, tendons, nerves, and fat deposits and the ability to approximate a vanished visage. Dramatic crime-solving “hits” are rare but deeply satisfying. In the first 100 pages, the author delivers an entertaining account of the life and work of an FBI forensic artist. From there, she recounts the first of many conflicts with supervisors and alternates details of bizarre forensic assignments and increasingly painful encounters with obnoxious bosses, some of which led to legal action. Readers will fume along with Bailey, but they may wish that her description of a dysfunctional work environment at the FBI were less intensely personal and included other examples from colleagues.

Despite occasional narrative distractions, a gruesomely vivid book.