At the height of the O. J. frenzy in 1994, California-based criminologists self-published a short pamphlet trying to inform the media about DNA testing and typing. When they realized that mostly lawyers were buying it, they expanded it to include legal aspects. The 1997 first edition of the published volume was expanded again to gather forensic DNA analysts into the readership net. In the second edition, they acknowledge short tandem repeat (STR) typing as the current system of choice, and emphasize the growing importance of DNA databases. General readers should find here a better understanding of the process as well as some technical material they can skip. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)