Chapters 9-10, A Sunless Place ..., Flames and Urns Summary and Analysis

Maples does not know where evil comes from but he has encountered it both in victims and in executed evildoers. He has seen the bodies of the wicked on full display; their brains fascinate him. The instruments of murder are vast; Maples has seen hammers, wrenches, tree limbs, building blocks and artificial legs used to kill. Murderers rarely use heavy objects. To see the depths of human depravity, one need only look to the Medico-legal Investigation of Death, a 623-page tome that sears the eyes of the unfamiliar. The worst is Chapter Eighteen which deals with wrongful childhood deaths.

The cases of young children that Maples faces remain the most vivid in his memory, such as the remains of a five-year-old girl found in a cloth bag...