A medical detective of the modern world, forensic pathologist Ryan Blumenthal’s chief goal is to bring perpetrators to justice. Of his thousands of autopsies, a significant number has helped bring criminals to book. In Autopsy (2020) he covers the hard lessons learnt as a rookie pathologist, as well as some of the most unusual cases he’s encountered: high-profile deaths, mass disasters, death by lightning and deaths caused by African wildlife. In Risking Life for Death (2023) Blumenthal offers a master class in a singular forensic technique: Locard’s Exchange Principle. It underpins all forensic science and holds that the perpetrator of a crime will bring something to the crime scene and leave with something from it. Using real-life case studies, Blumenthal explains how to look for clues and traces, and describes how the absence of evidence during an autopsy is often the most important clue.