From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
If photo historian Buckland (Cooper Union) intended this to be an insightful analysis of forensic photography, she fails by falling victim to the medium's powerful potential for spectacle. The cover photo of two bloodied male corpses lying in the detritus at the foot of an elevator shaft heralds the book's gruesome content. Buckland's disavowal of voyeurism ultimately rings false. Instead of expanding upon the brief history of crime photography that appears early in the book, she saturates the pages with a repellent tabloid admixture of visuals, devoid of any organizing principle other than shock value. Among the outsized photos are views of the hacked carcasses of Lizzie Borden's parents and the composting skeleton of the Lindbergh baby. Unlike Luc Sante's Evidence (LJ 10/1/92), a haunting collection of antique crime scene photos with a quasi-anthropological focus upon a specific time and place (Manhattan, 1910-19), Buckland's book is adrift between such non sequiturs as Cheryl Crane's 1957 "perp walk," O.J. trying on the glove, and 19th-century hangings. The inevitable coda to this Court TV-sponsored paperback comes with close-ups from President Kennedy's autopsy, the apotheosis of the brutal iconography celebrated here. Not recommended. Douglas F. Smith, Oakland P.L.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
