by VJ Knipe
Real life has no place in fiction — it’s too unbelievable. For instance, the 1990s provided the perfect example of how not to treat a crime scene. I’m talking, of course, about the O.J. Simpson case, where the retired American Football player’s wife and her lover were found brutally murdered. After a long-drawn-out trial, Simpson was found innocent of the crime by a jury of his peers. While the police may have had no case to make, their slap-dash methods of preserving evidence at the crime scene did not help.
These days we are used to seeing images of investigators masked up and in white protective suits with plastic booties. However, at the Simpson crime scene, the investigating officers wore street shoes, and more of the footprints at the scene are from police officers than from any possible criminal.[i]
In part, due to this poor procedure, all police forces now follow a strict pathway: Control, Preserve, Record and Recover. Using this method makes sure that there can be no valid accusations of the police planting or hiding evidence.
For control, we saw in the previous article, involves keeping unauthorized people out of the scene. Now we move onto Preserve. In this stage, authorized people enter the controlled crime scene, locate the evidence, and ensure none of it goes missing or is contaminated. As the judge observes in Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers:
[He]… drank two glassfuls and the remainder of the bottle was fortunately preserved. As you have already heard, the wine was later analyzed and found to be quite harmless.[ii]
At this point, it is not yet long-term preservation under consideration. The purpose of the preserve step is to ensure that the crime scene stays as close as possible to how it was at the moment of the crime. At this stage, personal protective equipment becomes visible: the white suits, the hair nets, masks, and booties.
One person, the crime scene manager or the investigating detective, walks the scene. They spy out the most obvious evidence, and its placement around the alleged crime, before the rest of the team enter.
If the crime is inside a building, then preservation could be as simple as placing a glass stepping plate over the imprint of a shoe in the carpet to save it for photographing. When a crime is outside, more things need consideration. Is night falling? Do you need to bring a generator and lights? And most of all, is it about to rain?[iii]
Very few authors depict the preserve step of the crime scene method. The step is quite fleeting, but still vital in true crime. Despite real life having no place in fiction, there are books that take preservation into consideration, when trying to bring an edge of realism to the fantasy world.
Murder on the Napoli Express by Randall Garrett
Preserving a body is often the most difficult part of a crime scene. In real life, the deceased is kept in position only until its position is recorded by diagrams and photography. After that, it is whisked away to the cold store. However, in fantasy it is possible to extend the situation by magic. As you read through speculative detective novels, you’ll find that Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy Investigates series, of short stories and one novel, play a big part in how later speculative fiction depicts criminal investigation.
The Lord Darcy books start in the 1950s and move through the 60s and 70s. The series takes place in an alternate history world where magic replaces technology. Back when Richard the Lionheart was on the throne, a monk identified the Laws of Magic, and all future advances in ‘science’ are based on these Laws. This includes the discipline of forensic sorcery. Lord Darcy, Chief Investigator for the Duke of Normandy, is accompanied on his investigations by forensic sorcerer Master Sean O’Lochlainn.
The stories often anticipate how modern world forensic analysis develops. For instance, in Murder on the Napoli Express, first published in Asimov’s SF in 1979, we find magical preservation of the evidence is routine.
The blood still looked fresh, so the preservative spell had been well cast – not that the stout little Irish sorcerer had ever doubted it, but it was always best to check.[iv]
These spells aren’t permanent. According to O’Lochlainn, permanent preservation requires a saint, not magic. The spell will last until the case is solved.[v] When combined with the aversion spell mentioned in controlling the crime scene, this allows the investigator the time and space necessary to find the criminal. From the books, these spells can be cast indoors or outdoors with no lessening of effect, very unlike real-life forensics.
The October Man by Ben Aaronovitch
One of the most obvious methods of preservation is a white tent, erected over an outside crime scene. These serve a dual purpose of shielding the dignity of the deceased, and protecting any possible evidence from inclement weather.
Ben Aaronovitch has written a series of police procedurals, set in an urban fantasy London. These books have led to spin-offs, some of them set in other countries. The October Man takes place in modern-day Germany, where they have to contend with the reality of rain. In wine producing country, a man is found smothered to death by a fungus that grew in his lungs. Kriminalkommissar Tobias Winter, from the magical investigation department of the Bundeskriminalamt[vi], Komplexe und diffuse Angelegenheiten[vii], is sent to investigate.
It had started to drizzle during the drive over… I was handicapped by the fact that the body had been taken away, leaving only an empty white forensic tent behind.[viii]
Here is the perfect situation that highlights the reason for preservation. Rain would wash away any evidence, so a tent is erected over the site. It is exactly what the reader expects to see in that situation, so it is included and helps to bridge the reader between reality and the fantasy elements of the story.
Alternative Investigators: Cats and Other Calamities by Alex Wagner
One aspect of preserve that is often forgotten, is that first you must find the evidence. Crime scene investigators have a number of ways to search: fingertip searches, grid patterns and spirals. However, one of the most useful tools for searching is a sniffer dog. Dog noses have roughly 220 million receptors. Compare that to about 5 million receptors in the human nose, and you’ll understand why dogs are supremely qualified to sniff out evidence. [ix]
Cats and Other Calamities is also set in Germany, and the version I read was a translation from German. Here we see the first part of the preserve step. However, our sniffer dog is also the detective. In Cats and Other Calamities, Athos, a Malamute sled dog, investigates the murder of a human who owns the kitten, Pearl. Athos is not trained as a sniffer dog, but he still searches for evidence.
“I know that specially trained representatives of my species almost have miracle noses. Most of them are German or Belgian shepherd dogs, who sniff out all kinds of things for people… Compared to the two-leggeds, I can of course call myself a miracle sniffer…” [x]
Unlike many other animal detective stories, in this book the humans cannot understand when the animals talk. There is no magic, just animals talking among themselves. To bring the evidence to the attention of the humans, he has to resort to growls and barks; two-leggeds are so blind.
It is the discussion of sniffer dogs that makes this series believable. The reader understands the training of dogs, therefore they must be intelligent.
For every story that heads into fantastika, the writer must ground the reader in reality. The authors shown here have pulled in small details of everyday forensic investigations to help the reader believe in the reality of their stories. Even a small step, like preserving the evidence, allows the reader to feel comfortable around the increasingly weird assertions of the story.
It’s difficult to find books to recommend, that mention preserve as a step, but in The Dark Side of the Road, a supernatural thriller by Simon R. Green, the main character mentions its regrettable absence as he investigates the murder of a friend.
The action of preserving the crime scene is quickly over, and the Crime Scene Investigators move rapidly to the next step, where they Record the location of any evidence found. This stage is covered in the next article of this series.
References
Aaronovitch, Ben. The October Man: A Rivers of London Novella. Orion. Kindle Edition.
Crime Museum. (2025). Forensics at the OJ Simpson Trial. CrimeScene.org. https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/famous-murders/forensic-investigation-of-the-oj-simpson-trial/
Garrett, Randall. Lord Darcy (FANTASY MASTERWORKS). Orion. Kindle Edition.
Sayers, Dorothy L. Strong Poison: Classic crime fiction at its best (Lord Peter Wimsey Series Book 6) Hodder & Stoughton. Kindle Edition.
Wagner, Alex. Cats and Other Calamities: An unputdownable cozy animal mystery full of fun and suspense (A Case for the Master Sleuths Book 1). Kindle Edition.
[i] Crime Museum
[ii] Sayers, (p. 11).
[iii] If you wish to learn more, then my article on the crime scene method is available here. https://mozartcultures.com/en/working-the-crime-scene-control-preserve-record-recover/
[iv] Garrett, (p. 600).
[v] Garrett, (p. 23).
[vi] The Federal Criminal Police
[vii] Complex and Diffuse Matters
[viii] Aaronovitch, (p. 11).
[ix] If you wish to learn more about sniffer dogs, I have written an article comparing sniffer dogs to electronic noses. https://mozartcultures.com/en/can-e-noses-replace-sniffer-dogs/
[x] Wagner, (pp. 126-127).
© Copyright 2025 VJ Knipe
About the Author
Armed with a BSc Biochemistry, an MSc Forensic Science, and a thirst for knowledge, Malaysian-born, Scottish writer, VJ Knipe navigates the realm of fantasy with a touch of the uncanny in a handful of published fantasy books and foray into self-publishing. An avid canoeist, cake decorator, and DIY enthusiast, she's also a passionate advocate for autism awareness. Her current work-in-progress is a Police Procedural set on Mars and she has a long-running monthly forensic science article for an online magazine.