Books: The Jigsaw Man

Yesterday I was loaned a copy of Paul Britton‘s “The Jigsaw Man – The Remarkable Career of Britain’s Foremost Criminal Psychologist”. It’s about a criminal psychologist (strangely enough) from Leicestershire (who actually worked in the same place as my parents) who helped with such cases as the Leicestershire murders of Caroline Osborne and Amanda Weedon by 18 year old butcher Paul Bostock, the Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth by Colin Pitchfork (which was the first use of DNA testing – the testing of over 2,000 men has been nicknamed ‘The Blooding’), the murder of “Baby James” Jamie Bulger by Jon Venables and Robert Thompson and many other murders.

I think the back cover of the book sums it up extremely well: “Paul Britton has assisted the police in over a hundred cases and has an almost mythic status in the field of crime deduction. His achievements read as though from the pages of Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie. What he searches for at the scene of the crime are not fingerprints, fibres or bloodstains – he looks for the ‘mind trace’ left behind by those responsible: the psychological characteristics that can help the police the identify and understand the nature of the perpetrator.”

It’s quite a fascinating read (I’ve already got to page 404 of 650: and I’ve been reading it for around the last 6 hours solid): not just from the “local angle” (I actually lived quite close to the scene of the Pitchfork murders and went to the schools mentioned), but also from the whole psychology and criminal investigation angle.

It’s going to take me another day or so to finish it, but I really need to now consider getting out of bed and making breakfast (yep, I’ve just been lying in bed reading this book since I woke up and I’ve got lots to do…)