Headline acquires 'fascinating' memoir from inside Forensics Explosive Laboratory

Headline Publishing Group will publish a memoir by Cliff Todd, the former head of the Forensics Explosive Laboratory.

Non-fiction publisher Iain MacGregor acquired UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) from Mark Lucas at the Soho Agency.

Explosive: Catching the Bombers will examine the cases Todd dealt with throughout his career, including the device concealed in a radio cassette player that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, the IRA attacks on Warrington in Cheshire, Staples Corner and St Mary Axe in London, the Bali nightclub bombings of 2002, and the 7/7 attacks in Central London that claimed 56 lives and injured 784 others in 2005. 

Todd will walk readers through the investigations step by step, explaining the science, the forensic work and the emotional toll on him and his family life. 

MacGregor said: "I am fortunate to have worked with various military veterans in bomb disposal to bring their stories to the world. Cliff’s memoir is to this genre what Richard Shepherd’s memoir Unnatural Causes was to criminal forensics. Both fascinating and deadly. Our aim is for Explosive to reach that level of readership."

Todd commented: "In many ways I have led an incredibly eventful life, considering that most of my career has been based in a laboratory. I have witnessed the terrible things mankind is capable of, and I am sure my soul has suffered from it along the way. I hope to convey to the reader the highly volatile and often emotive nature of the work my colleagues and I have carried out—and which they continue today—in order to protect the innocent and convict the guilty in the murky world of terrorism."

Explosive will be published in hardback in spring 2021.