Nonfiction Review: The Darkroom: Case Files of a Scotland Yard Forensic Photographer by A.J. Hewitt

Title: The Darkroom: Case Files of a Scotland Yard Forensic Photographer

Author: A.J. Hewitt

Year published: 2024

Category: Adult nonfiction

Pages: 340 pages

Rating: 4 out of 5

Location: (my 2025 Google Reading map): UK

Summary: It was my job to look and look and never look away, until I had captured every part of the scene, until I had told the story of those last moments that the dead could not... For years, A.J. Hewitt was the first person into a crime scene. Before the detectives and the forensics team it was her alone with the body, the only sound her flashes firing as they lit up scenes of unimaginable horror. It was her job to shoot the photographs that revealed the circumstances of someone's final moments. Now in her debut book, The Darkroom, Hewitt takes us into the shadowy world of the crime scene photographer, and recounts remarkable tales, from murders to suicides, accidents to assassinations.

Review: I first saw this book on Book'd Out and knew I had to read it. I have a thing for forensics; I find it super interesting.

This book has a lot of detail and I learned a vast amount: what the training is like to become a crime scene photographer, how they approach doing the photographs, how long it takes (10 hours for the most basic of crime scenes! And it could take up to days), what it looks like, smells like, etc. I had no idea that the photographers get in first and no one comes in until they are done for fear of contaminating the scene. That's not how it looks on TV (and the author makes this point).

There are lots of gruesome details in this book so if you don't want to read death details, skim those parts or miss this book altogether. Hewitt describes the bodies as she saw them, how the people were killed, etc so it can be a lot.

I also liked that Hewitt is a woman in a male-dominated field. She talked about this quite a bit and it must have been difficult. But, if you are interested in CSI and forensics, this is the book for you!

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