The Scent of Death

Acknowledgements

I was helped in the writing of this book by the generosity and expertise of people with far more knowledge than I have. Any inaccuracies in the text are entirely mine, not theirs. In no particular order, thanks to Tim Thompson, Professor of Applied Biological Anthropology at Teesside University, for patiently answering yet more odd questions; Tony Cook, the National Crime Agency’s Head of Operations at CEOP, for procedural advice, and whose excellent Senior Investigating Officers’ Handbook provided invaluable reference; Dr Martin Hall, forensic and veterinary entomologist at the National History Museum, London, for insights into blowflies and other insects; Patricia Wiltshire, Professor of Forensic Ecology at Southampton University, for providing wide-reaching background; the Metropolitan Police press office for their prompt responses; and forensic anthropologist Dr Anna Williams of the University of Huddersfield, for information on cadaver dogs and the odours of decomposition. Details of her campaign for a UK body farm are available at http://htf4uk.blogspot.com.

Thanks also to my agents Gordon Wise, Melissa Pimentel and the team at Curtis Brown; my UK editor Simon Taylor, my German editors Ulrike Beck and Friederike Ney, and everyone working behind the scenes at Transworld and Rowohlt publishers; to my Mom for her support, and to Ben Steiner and SCF for their fast read-through and comments.

Finally, a huge thank-you to my wife Hilary, first and best reader, for working tirelessly on this with me and sharing the good and bad. It really is a collaborative effort — I’m just the one at the keyboard.

Simon Beckett, January 2019