Scene of the Crime

Scene of the Crime by Anne Wingate is part of Writer’s Digest’s Howdunit series, the crime-writer references written by professionals in their fields, and it focuses on the crime scene itself, the inside details a writer needs to portray how investigators process a crime scene and what it reveals. For mystery, thriller, and crime writers, the crime scene is where the investigation begins. Accurate grounding in how investigators handle it separates credible crime fiction from the screen version.

Reviewed as the specialized craft tool it is, it does a focused job. My feelings are mixed. The principles are sound and the timing is terrible: it came out in 1992, and DNA and modern forensics have rewritten the field since.

The lens, as with these references, is craft: the value is authentic procedural detail for writing believable investigation, and this review treats it as that tool, focused on what it gives a storyteller.

How a crime scene really works

The value is a professional, inside account of crime-scene processing. How investigators secure and document a scene.

What investigators look for. How they identify, collect, and preserve evidence, and what a scene can and can’t reveal. Written by someone with real experience in the field, it hands a writer the procedural detail to portray this stage accurately. It goes after the scene every bad crime novel seems to have, the detective strolling through and pawing the evidence like it’s a yard sale. I can’t stand that scene, and Wingate makes it impossible to write with a straight face.

For a crime writer, getting the crime scene right is foundational, because it’s where the investigation, and often the plot, begins, and errors here undermine everything that follows.

Procedure as plot foundation

Getting the crime scene right pays off structurally, because the evidence found and how it’s interpreted often drives the entire plot of a mystery. A writer who understands realistic crime-scene procedure can build a story where the clues are discovered and read in believable ways, where the chain of evidence holds up, and where the investigation proceeds the way a real one would. That’s more credible and usually more interesting than a plot that ignores procedure for convenience.

Wingate’s grounding gives a writer the foundation a fair-play mystery stands on. Botch the scene and every clue after it is suspect. That’s the strongest argument in the book, and it’s right.

Is Scene of the Crime still current?

The standard limitation applies, and weighs heavily here. The book dates from 1992, and crime-scene investigation is exactly the area most transformed by advancing forensic science: DNA analysis, digital evidence, and modern forensic techniques have remade what a crime scene can reveal and how investigators process it since the author wrote the book. The broad principles, securing a scene, the logic of evidence, chain of custody, remain valid, but the specific capabilities are considerably dated, and a writer setting a contemporary story must update them heavily against current forensic practice.

As with all such references, it’s grounding for fiction, not a manual, and dated in its particulars like its shelfmates.

Is Scene of the Crime worth reading?

It’s a useful Howdunit-series reference on crime-scene processing, valuable for its professional grounding in how a scene is really handled and for the way accurate procedure forms the believable foundation of a mystery’s plot. It loses ground for its 1992 vintage, and that matters because DNA and modern forensics have transformed crime-scene investigation, so the capabilities need heavy updating against current practice.

Treat it as sound on the lasting principles and a dated starting point on the techniques, useful to the crime writer and best paired with current forensic sources. A capable foundational tool, badly dated in its specifics.

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