Edward M. Robinson

I read this while studying for the IAI's Crime Scene Certification test - and had I not been tested on the material would not have bothered to finish it.

Poorly written, stuffy, and with large blocks of material duplicated between chapters. Most of the book reads as if it were a transcript of a lecture at the FBI Academy, or perhaps a collection of class handouts that were bound together without much editing. Robinson throws in lots of erudite "factoids" to puff up his scholarship - but some of his facts are demonstrably wrong.

On page 131 he discusses the German physicist Ernst Abbe (1840 - 1905) and states that the word "aberration" (referring to lens distortion) is derived from his name. Thirty seconds with an online dictionary shows that the word derives from Latin and was in published use several centuries before Abbe was born.

The editing of this book needs work as well. In several instances formulas have incorrect or inconsistent variables, or change format. On page 161 he refers to "Focal Length of the Lens" as "FFL" and then a few lines later as "FLL" before switching back to "FFL".

All of this while referring to himself in the third person.… (mere)