Man Hunt is a true crime book detailing the development of scientific techniques over the last two hundred years. It covers advancements made in the detection of crime in the areas of fingerprinting, ballistics, offender profiling, surveillance, interrogation and DNA. The science is given a human slant by relating it to actual crimes. The book is a fascinating study of technology and ideas and I was often amazed at how early some of the techniques were introduced.

However, sometimes I was frustrated by the lack of detail. I felt the book tried to bite off too big and too varied a chunk of the history of crime detection and the result was, from time to time, the equivalent of verbal indigestion which was a real shame. Each of the areas covered would form the basis for an excellent book on that topic, which would allow a much more in depth study of each particular aspect. What in this book are just intriguing snippets of cases could then be expanded ino a fuller, and more thoughtful look at the subject. There were just too many facts to take in and about half way through I felt as though I was suffering from information overload. It's more a book to dip into at leisure and, perhaps, follow up on some of the case studies mentioned. Each chapter has an excellent section of Notes and a full Bibliography points the reader in the direction of further information.