The Joys of Adermatoglyphia Malcolm Rose

Why do we have fingerprints? Science isn’t sure. Some say they improve grip, but more recent research suggests that the ridges reduce friction. Maybe they are there to improve the sensitivity of our fingertips. One thing’s for sure. They didn’t evolve to reveal our identity to forensic scientists.

So, what’s this about adermatoglyphia? It’s a rare genetic mutation and it’s an attractive medical condition if you’re a criminal. Very handy indeed. I’m tempted to say groovy but that’s entirely inappropriate. People with adermatoglyphia have no fingerprints. Great! That’s the basis of a new crime story, surely. But hang on. So far, only five families worldwide are known to have this gene variation. That makes the premise somewhat implausible. Still, I’ve read many implausible things in crime stories and successfully suspended my disbelief.

I know of two other reasons for a lack of fingerprints. But, sorry, I’m keeping them to myself for the moment. Sooner or later, you’ll read about them in a novel.

Right. That’s fingerprint evidence taken care of. Now, how am I going to avoid leaving my DNA at the scene of my crime?

Pubescent Police and Pesky Parents by Malcolm Rose

Malcolm Rose

Young people engage most with young people.

That’s a problem when writing crime stories for them. It suggests authors need to come up with young yet credible sleuths. Having the characters’ parents around is a bit of a pain as well.

In my quirky crime series, TRACES, set in a parallel version of the UK, families are organized differently. Parents hand over their five-year-olds to the school authorities for upbringing. And schools work differently – they are much more focused on career from an early age. The brightest students graduate into their careers at the age of sixteen. That’s how I can have a believable 16-year-old detective who has lost all contact with his biological family. Two birds, one stone.

I take a different approach in my JORDAN STRYKER series. In the first chapter, I simply blow up the hero’s family in a massive but realistic explosion in the Thames Estuary. Jordan is the only one to survive and he does so only with serious injuries. He needs modern robotic and medical technology to keep him alive. It’s an underground organization that funds his repair and body enhancements, turning him into a fourteen-year-old bionic agent. With the amazing resources at his disposal, it doesn’t really matter how old he is. There’s no lower age limit when the crime-fighting organization is secret.




But I’ve had enough of careful justification. If/When I write another crime series set in an alternative Britain (and, yes, it’s in the pipeline), I’m going to refuse to explain why my two main detectives are sixteen years old. I will trust the reader to accept that’s just the way it is.

Mad Motives for Murder: by Malcolm Rose

That’s “Mad Motives for Murder” written by me, not mad motives for the murders I’ve just committed. Anyway, why do people murder? Resentment, revenge, racism, robbery and rage are just a few obvious reasons. There are many more, including all those that don’t begin with r. But what brings on these strong feelings? Sometimes the underlying causes are quite surprising. All of these have actually happened and have been reported in the news.

Husband kills wife because she burnt a hole in his favourite shirt when she was ironing it. The weapon was the iron.

Japanese mother kills neighbour’s toddler to secure last place at local nursery for her own child.

Driver of ice-cream van murders rival with a home-made sword after a clash for the best spot for selling ice-creams.

Man kills wife and four others because his breakfast eggs were cold.

Chinese computer-gamer murders his friend for stealing his dragon sabre – a virtual object in an online game.

Lawyer (yes, a lawyer!) kills person sitting next to him in a cinema after an argument about noisy eating of popcorn.

Probably not a good idea to use any of these in a crime story. Your readers wouldn’t believe them. Do you know any other (genuine) weird ones?

Malcolm Rose is the bestselling author of the Jordan Stryker and Luke Harding series, among many others. When he says they aren't his own mad motives, I think he's another one who's protesting too much (see Anne Rooney). Re the popcorn, I'd have done the same as the lawyer.

Toxic Top Ten Malcolm Rose 2 and 1

For my top two toxins, I turn to the truly terrifying. One is a nightmare for any forensic scientist on the trail of a poisoner, the other is a nightmare for the victim.

2. Ricin. Obtained from the seeds of castor oil bean, ricin is fatal at levels below the detection limit of forensic tests. One thousandth of a gram is enough to kill a human being. In 1978, the dissident Bulgarian writer, Georgi Markov, was assassinated in London after being jabbed with a poisoned umbrella while waiting at a bus stop. A small metal pellet, with a hole for the poison to leak out, had been injected into his leg. Analysis of tissue samples and the pellet cavity did not reveal the poison but very few chemicals apart from ricin are lethal at such low levels and his symptoms – burning sensation in the mouth, throat and stomach, sickness, diarrhoea, abdominal cramps, convulsions, breathing difficulties, death – matched ricin poisoning. (Ricin can be found in Blood Brother.)

1. Tetrodotoxin or TTX for short. When a poison is called “zombie powder” because of its use in voodoo potions, you know it’s going to be a cracker. TTX is in some species of frogs, newts and sea creatures such as pufferfish. It is one of the most toxic substances in the world, being ten thousand times more lethal to humans than cyanide. It paralyses the muscles, robbing the victim of speech and motion, shuts down the organs one by one, but it never crosses into the brain so the victim remains conscious until death from heart failure or suffocation. For a few hours, the victim is like a zombie: alive and awake yet, to all intents and purposes, lifeless. If you like to dice with death while you dine, try fugu. It’s a delicacy in Japan and it’s pufferfish – with the poisonous parts removed expertly (hopefully) by a licensed chef. On average, the meal causes a hundred accidental deaths each year. (TTX can be found in Roll Call.)

That’s me done. I’m feeling strangely exhausted. Eyes shutting, heartbeat slowing, head aching, world spinning. That seafood paella... Surely no one would’ve....

More poisons from Malcolm

We’re getting close to the vomit-inducing climax. We are lurching towards the really horrid poisons. As a crime writer and an ex-chemist, I am fatally attracted to them.

4. Anthrax. Originally isolated from a diseased cow near Oxford, anthrax was used to... Sorry. MI5 has just issued a gagging order. Still, there’s always Wikipedia (and Forbidden Island.)

3. Eastern diamondback rattlesnake. This is a bad-tempered creature that will sometimes pursue a human intruder. Its venom thins human blood, making it so runny that it leaks. Victims have blood-filled swellings underneath the skin, bruising, bleeding gums and eyes, and watery blood pools in the extremities and lungs. Once the fluid has filled the lungs, paralysis, coma and death follow rapidly. Probable cause of death is suffocation through internal drowning. (The venom can be found in Framed.)

Toxic Top Ten Malcolm Rose 8 and 7

Plants don’t want to be eaten, so some protect themselves with poison. The Duchess of Northumberland keeps a garden of poisonous plants in Alnwick and offers guided tours. Good research for any crime writer or murderer. The next two toxins in my contaminated countdown are both from plants.

8. Foxglove. Got some pretty foxgloves in your garden? Oh dear. They contain digoxin and eating a few leaves will cause headache, nausea, delirium, visual disturbances, slow pulse and death in about half an hour.

7. The suicide tree. The Cerbera tree grows across India and south-east Asia and it contains cerberin, a toxin similar to the foxglove’s digoxin. More people commit suicide with this tree than with any other plant. Some of those deaths are actually murders in which the culprit disguises the bitter taste of the crushed kernels by mixing with spicy foods. In the West, toxicologists are familiar with digoxin but they wouldn’t recognize a murder by cerberin. Mmm. Got me thinking.