Elizabeth Becka responds!
I shot off my mouth about Ms. Becka's book "Unknown Means" and told her she could have the last word. Here it is.
Okay, here's my response. Thanks so much for this opportunity!!
First of all, I am delighted that anyone reads my books at all, much less with such attention to detail. Let me try to respond to the comments in order:
We had a color printer for the FTIR because when spectra of different samples were shown on the same graph (because analysis was not necessarily the goal here, but comparison—we don’t necessarily care what the stuff is, as long as it’s the same stuff on both victim and suspect, thus establishing a connection) the program would put each sample’s spectrum in a different color. This was quite a treat to me because at the time (10 years ago) it was the only color printer to which I had access, and came in handy for some (ahem) personal projects.
Unfortunately I have been separated from my laboratory equipment for over eight years now, so I have to write from a combination of memory and research. I confess to the error of writing silicon when I meant silicone. That was me and not the editor. Copyeditors are incredible people for catching my errors but I shouldn’t expect them to have a degree in organic chemistry as well!
I don’t know exactly why we used Permount instead of Aroclor, but we did. I liked Permount. And, yes, I would have gone on to distinguish between nylon 6 and nylon 6,6 (though probably with the FTIR or a simple solubility routine) but that would have been too much technical detail for the book. Some reviewers already think I include too much detail.
I would use dry mounts under a light microscope for quick eliminations, where fine morphology was not usually necessary. In forensic work, you see the same things over and over (usually cotton) rather than many different varieties of fiber, and again, I don’t need to identify each one. All I want to know is, could they have come from the victim’s sweater? If they are obviously different, no further examination is done.
I’m very impressed that you could identify hemp with polarized light. I used the PLM only for synthetics. I can see the confusion at the beginning of Chapter 20 because I do not specify that she is using the comparison microscope, not the PLM or the stereo (although I do mention 40x magnification), to compare the hairs and fibers. She uses the stereomicroscope only to scrape off a bit of the oily residue adhering to it.
I’m quite mystified about the Kevlar error. I’ve searched all my references and I don’t find a picture of Kevlar under a light microscope at all, and after an hour on the internet I still couldn’t find one. I don’t know if my 8 to 10 year old memory had it confused with another fiber or if I saw a picture of something somewhere that was supposed to be Kevlar and wasn’t. Since it’s now been three years since I wrote Unknown Means, I can’t remember on what I based my description.
Again, I’m thrilled that someone is reading my books with such attention! The next book should contain few if any microscopy errors, because, unfortunately, it contains very little microscopy. My character gets involved in a bank robbery/hostage crisis and is separated from her lab for most of the book—exciting, but light on the glass slides. My pen name for this one is Lisa Black and the title of the book is Takeover. It will be available anywhere books are sold next month, on August 12th. I hope you will like it, even without the FTIR analyses.
Elizabeth Becka
www.lisa-becka.com
Okay, here's my response. Thanks so much for this opportunity!!
First of all, I am delighted that anyone reads my books at all, much less with such attention to detail. Let me try to respond to the comments in order:
We had a color printer for the FTIR because when spectra of different samples were shown on the same graph (because analysis was not necessarily the goal here, but comparison—we don’t necessarily care what the stuff is, as long as it’s the same stuff on both victim and suspect, thus establishing a connection) the program would put each sample’s spectrum in a different color. This was quite a treat to me because at the time (10 years ago) it was the only color printer to which I had access, and came in handy for some (ahem) personal projects.
Unfortunately I have been separated from my laboratory equipment for over eight years now, so I have to write from a combination of memory and research. I confess to the error of writing silicon when I meant silicone. That was me and not the editor. Copyeditors are incredible people for catching my errors but I shouldn’t expect them to have a degree in organic chemistry as well!
I don’t know exactly why we used Permount instead of Aroclor, but we did. I liked Permount. And, yes, I would have gone on to distinguish between nylon 6 and nylon 6,6 (though probably with the FTIR or a simple solubility routine) but that would have been too much technical detail for the book. Some reviewers already think I include too much detail.
I would use dry mounts under a light microscope for quick eliminations, where fine morphology was not usually necessary. In forensic work, you see the same things over and over (usually cotton) rather than many different varieties of fiber, and again, I don’t need to identify each one. All I want to know is, could they have come from the victim’s sweater? If they are obviously different, no further examination is done.
I’m very impressed that you could identify hemp with polarized light. I used the PLM only for synthetics. I can see the confusion at the beginning of Chapter 20 because I do not specify that she is using the comparison microscope, not the PLM or the stereo (although I do mention 40x magnification), to compare the hairs and fibers. She uses the stereomicroscope only to scrape off a bit of the oily residue adhering to it.
I’m quite mystified about the Kevlar error. I’ve searched all my references and I don’t find a picture of Kevlar under a light microscope at all, and after an hour on the internet I still couldn’t find one. I don’t know if my 8 to 10 year old memory had it confused with another fiber or if I saw a picture of something somewhere that was supposed to be Kevlar and wasn’t. Since it’s now been three years since I wrote Unknown Means, I can’t remember on what I based my description.
Again, I’m thrilled that someone is reading my books with such attention! The next book should contain few if any microscopy errors, because, unfortunately, it contains very little microscopy. My character gets involved in a bank robbery/hostage crisis and is separated from her lab for most of the book—exciting, but light on the glass slides. My pen name for this one is Lisa Black and the title of the book is Takeover. It will be available anywhere books are sold next month, on August 12th. I hope you will like it, even without the FTIR analyses.
Elizabeth Becka
www.lisa-becka.com
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