AUTHOR TALK: The Dead Speak by Thomas Coyle

With a career that spans investigating murders at New Scotland Yard to identifying bodies after global disasters, a leading forensic scientist shares his journey from growing up on a Leicester council estate to joining the Metropolitan Police, before entering the world of disaster victim identification.

n this empathetic and darkly funny memoir, Thomas Coyle – one of New Zealand's most seasoned forensic investigators – pulls back the police tape and walks us straight into the crime scenes. With sharp detail, he reveals how the tiniest fragment of evidence can expose a suspect, prove a motive or confirm an identity. Sometimes, all at once.

But crime scenes are only part of his story. The Dead Speak also plunges us into the world of disaster victim identification – a discipline where time, science and compassion collide. Where forensic experts are flung into a race against time to identify bodies in makeshift morgues as desperate families wait for news of their loved ones.

His memoir charts not just the evolution of forensic science, but the extraordinary life of a man who has made the dead speak.