Product Description

William Maples was a groundbreaking criminal anthropologist. From a skeleton, a skull, or a mere fragment of bone, he could deduce the age and sex of a corpse and the manner in which the victim met its death. Numerous brutal and vicious murders were solved through his skill in reading the bones of the dead. "Dead Men Do Tell Tales" reveals the fascinating case histories behind some of his most unusual and horrific investigations. In startling and sometimes gruesome detail, but always with remarkable compassion, Dr Maples describes the steps he took in resolving each mystery - from baffling dismemberment cases to the identity of long-buried skeletons.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #51634 in Books
• Published on: 1995-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Patricia Cornwall
‘An incredible story, brilliantly told. Maples takes us safely through the valley of shadows and death. Dead Men Do Tell Tales is a masterpiece’

Patricia Cornwell
‘A Masterpiece’

New York Time Book Review
‘Maples and Browning could have written a dry, clinical analysis of forensic anthropology; instead they tell tales better than the dead could for themselves’

Customer Reviews

Forensic Anthropology Casebook
William Maples was a Forensic Anthropologist in Florida and this book explains in fascinating detail many of the cases that he has come across in his job.

I learnt a lot of amazing facts about forensic anthropology (like the work of a pathologist but studying bones) which in itself is reason to buy this book. But these facts are interwoven in some fascinating cases which include accounts of skeletons of many famous people, Robert the Bruce, the Elephant Man, President Zachary Taylor and Tsar Nicholas II and his family among others. The cases not only involve the famous but ordinary people; suicides, murders, leprosy, arsenic poisoning, cremation plus loads of other weird cases.

There are two sections of photographs illustrating most of the cases in the book and it was extremely easy to read. Highly recommended to anyone who likes true crime, forensics or if you like novels of Kathy Reichs. If your interested in this sort of thing then a must buy!

Starts off well
This is one of many popluar forensic books that I've read over the years. It is told from the point of view of a forensic anthropologist (they deal with bones, not complete bodies).

William Maples lead a fascinating life - we learn about his experiences in Africa and as a young man at college. All too briefly, I must say.

The first part of this book teases the reader with promises of things to come. Breathlessly, we hear about suicides and murders... all in passing.

Then the author decides to take a more thorough approach. We get rather long chapters on identification of MIA servicemen, a conqusitador, the Tsar and this family, the Meek-Jennings case (which is hinted at all through the book - it must have been Maples' favourite case) and Zachary Taylor.

The problem is that the science of forensic anthropology is barely touched on. Maples' descriptions of his work make it seem like one man and a pair of tweezers instead of a science. I would like to more about the techniques involved.

Personally, I found the chapters on the famous cases (especially that of the Tsar) less interesting than his earlier chapters, which were composed of many examples. I'm sad to say that I didn't really care whether or not Zachary Taylor (a US president for about 10 mins, a hundred and fifty years ago) was poisoned.

All in all, this is a good book but it doesn't grip the reader in the same way that some other forensics books do. If you want a great book with the air of a mystery, read "What the Corpse Revealed" by Hugh Miller.

inspiration !!
I started a forensic science degree 2 years a go and after reading this book it really motivated me to peform as well as i could and push to myself so that i could aim to work in the same field as William Maples. Each chapter tells more insight into Maples life and how he worked to acheive his position in world of forensic anthropology. Each account that he gives of past cases solved and unsolved are nailbiting, I definitly found myself not being able to put this book down. I would recommend it to anybody in this profession as it is definitly an honour to read about a man who helped greatly found this science.