Dissecting death

Hawaii-based forensic scientists turn experience to prose that illuminates the forbidding but fascinating world of blood and bones

One of the first things you learn in science is that there are few legitimate coincidences. The principle of Occam's Razor applies -- peel away the impossibles, then the improbables, then the least improbable is likely the answer. Simplicity rules.

RANDOM HOUSE From "Forensic Detective: How I Cracked the World's Toughest Cases" Meet the Author Thomas Holland will sign his novel, "One Drop of Blood," at noon Saturday at Borders Ward Centre. Call 591-8995.

So what are the chances that two scientists working at the same lab would have major-league books published at almost the same moment, about the same subject? Thomas Holland, director of the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory at Hickam Air Force Base, has hammered out a murder mystery novel called "One Drop of Blood," while the lab's Robert Mann has produced a memoir, "Forensic Detective: How I Cracked the World's Toughest Cases."

Both books feature bones on the cover and a central character who's a forensic pathologist or osteologist. Look up one book on Amazon.com and the site cannily suggests that you also purchase the other book. The fact that one book is a fictional whodunit and the other a factual howdunit doesn't prevent the reader from getting a basic refresher in the divining of mitochodrial DNA, or mtDNA. Armchair "CSI" fans, indeed.

The only way to get to the bottom of this mystery is to haul these characters into an interrogation chamber and turn on the bright lights:

"It really was a coincidence that we got our books published at the same time," claimed Mann. He's the leprechaunish one. "I actually started mine back in 1988 when I went to Easter Island, my first big trip examining skeletal remains outside the U.S. I took notes about our work on the island, the people we met and the scenery." He started work at the Central Identification Laboratory in 1992, and started a journal. "The chapters became a book that kept growing."

"I guess it's a coincidence that's 14 years in the making," mused Holland. He's the sleepy-bear one. "I knew that Bob has been worrying around manuscripts for years, and has been encouraging me to write. But how many people do you know who are always saying, 'I ought to write a book!' Seems like you can't swing a cat without hitting one."

Holland didn't tell anyone outside of his wife and children he was writing a novel, a murder mystery that capitalized on his forensic knowledge and boyhood experiences in Arkansas.

"Mine was totally the result of too many hours sitting on airplanes reading other people's bad novels," he said. "One day, stuck in some airport during a 47-hour trip to Bosnia, I had one of those fall-off-the-chair epiphanies: I could write a book every bit as bad! So I opened up my laptop computer and started." When he was done, he started on another.

"I was halfway through the manuscript for the second one, and Bob mentioned he was pursuing it again," said Holland. "I waited a couple of days, mulling over how much embarrassment I was willing to open myself up for, and finally confided to him. He kept the secret well. Our two books worked their way through the Byzantine world of publishing, and we were able to compare notes. Book writing is a bizarre business. But then, so is forensic anthropology."

Mann's straightforward memoir was easier to conceptualize as he "already had the material, chapters I'd been writing in the field. I used to go back to my tent or hotel room every night in Vietnam, Japan or wherever I might be, and spend an hour or two on the computer writing down what I'd done that day."

After most missions he had 20 to 30 pages. "I wanted others to share in the adventure of base camping in the jungle or a logging road in the middle of winter in Japan, bathing in a river at the end of a hot day, meeting and working with Montagnard hill tribes who've never even seen an American, searching for a missing pilot in Russia, and sifting through the wreckage of an airplane that was shot down 60 years ago."

"I had to write a fiction book because Bob took all the good nonfiction stories," laughed Holland. "I'm also at a point in my career where the nuts and bolts of forensic anthropology -- while still tremendously interesting and rewarding -- has less appeal than the human aspect of the cases we work. Each case is a story, every case has a fascinating web of practical and emotional and ethical complexity. The best vehicle for conveying that is fiction."

Even though Mann and Holland have written hundreds articles and papers for professional journals and magazines, they found the craft of writing for books to be fun.

"The exciting part was that it forced me to re-create each situation in exquisite detail," said Mann, "the colors, the smells, the people, the weather that day, the people I met and what they were wearing and what they were doing, and how we were or were not different from one another, the snakes, leeches and venomous spiders that we encountered along jungle paths, the unexploded ordnance buried beneath our feet -- the men we were looking for. What had happened to them, how wonderful it would be to find their remains and bring them home."

Said Holland, "Writing fiction is like sleepwalking. I had 80 percent of the first book finished in two weeks. I sometimes wish I were more organized in my approach. Sometimes I end up backing the truck way up and revising whole chapters, but for the most part, it's been a very straightforward process.

"What's fun about it? Solving the mystery. I like to think I'm smarter than the main character. He didn't figure out what was happening until about Page 300; I had it figured out by Page 250."

The two did compare notes on the process of getting a first book published, which turned out to be much more difficult than they'd expected.

"I'd always thought that I could write a book, mail it off to a couple of publishers and they'd love it," Mann said. "Boy, was I wrong. I recently found a postcard I sent my mom back in 1994 -- 'I hope to hear back about my book manuscript in about two weeks.' That was 12 years ago. 'CSI' hadn't become the rage and the publisher turned it down.

"The first agent I had died before he could sell my manuscript, so I had to find another one."

Mann called his mentor, world-renowned anthropologist Bill Bass of the University of Tennessee, the author of "Death's Acre," who recommended his own agent. He also signed on a co-author, Miryam Williamson, who helped turn his scientific, third-person descriptive approach into a more interesting first-person perspective. "I got her name from an author friend. It seems like a lot is done word of mouth."

Mann is going to "digest" the release of his current book for a couple of years, while Holland's second novel -- working title "KIA" -- will be out a year from now. Quite an accomplishment. Has there been a lot of backslapping at the lab?

"My friends and colleagues (at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command) and the Smithsonian have been incredibly supportive," said Mann. "It's a bit awkward putting your personal thoughts down on paper for the world to read, but that's what happens."

"I've kept the news and progress pretty quiet," said Holland. "I want to keep the day job and the night job separate. The work of our lab is very sacred, but much of it is also very politically charged. Now that the book is out, well, so is the news. Overall, folks at the lab are, first, surprised; second, complimentary; third, take every opportunity to ride me about it and point out errors and inconsistencies."

Fleshing out the bare bones of a piece of writing is one thing, but these guys do it for real, every day. The Hickam laboratory is charged with recovering and identifying the remains of U.S. service members.

There's just something about bones that symbolize the human condition -- often all we leave behind.

"I was never particularly good nor interested in jigsaw puzzles, although I am pretty good at piecing together broken bones, which I find fascinating," said Mann. "My interest in bones comes from my own curiosity of what's inside our bodies, the part of us that no one sees ... not our muscles, tendons or flesh, but that part of us that survives long after our visible features have vanished. Our skeleton is an encyclopedia that records our activities -- broken bones, dental cavities and fillings, our diet, whether we exercised, our age, race, sex, height and, sometimes, how and when we died. It's all written in bone."

"I have the greatest job in the world. It is the most intellectually and emotionally satisfying thing that you can possibly do," said Holland. "Imagine solving some of the most complex puzzles in the world -- we identified a soldier lost in World War I; we identified the Vietnam Unknown Soldier from Arlington National Cemetery. Intellectual satisfaction doesn't get any better than that, but, to make it all the better, there's an emotional aspect to it as well. ...

"These men went in harm's way because this country asked them to. They didn't come back, and for 30, 45, 60 years they have lain, unknown, far from home. They went to war with a name -- they deserve to come home with one. It's a great job."

Worth writing about, it seems.

Kapolei library hosts free 'CSI' night

Another local expert in the field of forensic science, M. Lee Goff, will host a discussion, "C.S.I. -- Crime Scene Investigation in the Real World," at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Kapolei Public Library. Admission is free.

Goff is one of nine certified forensic entomologists in the country and a consultant for the "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" television drama. He is the author of "A Fly for the Prosecution: How Insect Evidence Helps Solve Crimes" (Harvard University Press, 2001, $22.95).

He is an expert in how the way insects attack corpses can be used to determine evidence.

Goff is also a consultant in forensic entomology for the city of Honolulu, and teaches at Chaminade University.

His one-hour program will be held on the first floor of the library in the Young Adult section, and is suitable for ages 12 and up.

Kapolei Public Library is at 1020 Manawai Street. Call 693-7050.