Professor Patricia Wiltshire will take you on a journey through the fascinating edgeland where nature and crime are intertwined. She'll take you searching for bodies of loved ones - through woodlands, along hedgerows, field-edges, and through plantations - solving time since death, and disposal of remains, from ditches to living rooms. She will give you glimpses of her own history: her loves, her losses, and the narrow little valley in Wales where she first woke up to the wonders of the natural world. Pat will show you how her work with a microscope reveals tell-tale traces of the world around us, and how these have taken suspects of the darkest criminal activities to court.

From flowers, fungi, tree trunks to car pedals, walking boots, carpets, and corpses' hair, Traces is a unique book on life, death, and one's indelible link with nature.

回顧大半生，我覺得自己畢竟是一個二十世紀人。對於二十一世紀，我沒有期望，只覺得我的二十世紀尚未完結。這本回憶錄，也是我為自己的二十世紀寫的備忘錄。
我在書裡追憶自己的成長過程和漫長的求學經驗，並特別把在普林斯頓、芝加哥、哈佛等美國六間大學任教的經驗也和求學連在一起，美其名曰「遊學」。我跟著「成長小說」的模式，寫我的生命經驗，而不是歷數學術上的成就。最後還冒然加上一章「感情史」，算是我的「感情教育」。
對我而言，回憶錄的結構可以自由一點，像一部尚未剪接的影片。我時常邀請一位虛擬的提問者，像作曲法中的「對位」一樣，向我提問、質詢、駁詰，逼我作自我反省。即使有些章節用的是獨白，我心中還是有一個沉默的對話者。本書的第二部分是我與張歷君的對談，他會進一步引出我對自己學思歷程和閱讀經驗的反思。
想在這個二十一世紀「全球網絡化」的世界中去重尋二十世紀的個人生命意義，作沉靜的反思，幾乎是不可能的事。即便如此，我還是想寫下去，至少要證實自己還存在。