Here are some books that have crossed our desks recently.

HARDBACKS

"IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE: Adventures in the History of Forensic Science," by Michael Kurland, Ivan R. Dee, $27.50 (nf)

Kurland traces the history of forensic science from Archimedes and the ancient Chinese to today, and the major techniques of criminal detection and many of the minor ones. He also explains how once-accepted techniques have fallen by the wayside, like handwriting analysis, and how methods such as lie detectors, voice spectrum analysis, bite mark evidence, and other methods have proven unworthy.

Kurland also explores the rise of modern DNA typing techniques, which have proven the innocence of many persons convicted of major crimes and resulted in the exoneration of more than 200 on death row.

More hardbacks recently released:

"To Love Is to Fly," by Jonathan Chester (f); "The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild," by Lawrence Anthony with Graham Spence (nf); "The Crisis," by David Poyer (f); "Yours Ever: People and Their Letters," by Thomas Mallon (nf); "Fall to Pieces: A Memoir of Drugs, Rock 'n' Roll, and Mental Illness," by Mary Forsberg Weiland with Larkin Warren (nf); "The Darkest Summer: Pusan and Inchon 1950; the Battles That Saved South Korea — and the Marines — From Extinction," by Bill Sloan (nf); "Grave Images: San Luis Valley," by Kathy T. Hettinga (nf); "The Citizen's Constitution: An Annotated Guide," by Seth Lipsky (nf); "Enduring Words: Literary Narrative in a Changing Media Ecology," by Michael Wutz (nf); "Skipjack: The Story of America's Last Sailing Oystermen," by Christopher White (nf); "A Rainbow in the Night: The Tumultuous Birth of South Africa," by Dominque Lapierre (nf)

PAPERBACKS

"DANGER'S HOUR: The Story of the USS Bunker Hill and the Kamikaze Pilot Who Crippled Her," by Maxwell Taylor Kennedy, Simon and Schuster, $16 (nf, reprint)

Kennedy interviews people on both sides of the war to paint a clearer picture of the last few months of WWII when the U.S. Navy was struggling against kamikaze pilots off the coast of Japan.