MAGGOTS, MURDER, AND MEN

The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out. And so do a host of other nasty critters, says the noted British “maggotologist,” that provide a wealth of data for students of murder and mayhem.

“Viewed dispassionately, a dead human body is a magnificent and highly nutritious resource,” Erzinçlioglu writes with unveiled delight. Almost as soon as that body becomes available to nature, colonies of insects come a-calling: first bluebottles and greenbottles, then minute wasps and blowflies, then gnats and, perhaps, scuttle flies, then worms. This “succession of insects,” as Erzinçlioglu dubs it, can help a forensic examiner establish how long a body has been dead, a datum that, taken with other kinds of evidence, can help point to the agent of demise—all very useful stuff, for which reason Scotland Yard keeps Erzinçlioglu busy. To illustrate his point (and his tremendous usefulness), he revisits a number of cases from his own files and the annals of British crime alike, among them the case of a badly decomposed infant boy, the window-midges inside of whom suggested that the child had been killed indoors just a few days after his birth, and that of the savage career of the mad surgeon known as “Dr. Ruxton,” who scattered the dismembered corpses of his victims across the English countryside in the mid-1930s. It’s all very creepy—and very well-written, full of useful asides such as: “People who commit murder seem to think that the last place a criminal investigator is likely to look is under the floorboards; in fact, it is one of the first places the police check.”

Breezy, captivating, and gross: just the sort of thing to brighten a mystery buff’s day.