I think they are good to provide some side or extra information, but one should not rely solely on the knowledge obtained from novels as things are mostly exaggerated.
There's some great novels especially from authors like Val Mcdermid that do a farily good job exploring investigative work. Though, like film and TV, books are designed for entertainment purposes and if this means manipulating facts slightly than that's fine for entertainment. So again not useful to learn forensic psychology in any great detail, not may be somewhat useful to see how they work alongside police investigations.
I think they are good to provide some side or extra information, but one should not rely solely on the knowledge obtained from novels as things are mostly exaggerated.
There's some great novels especially from authors like Val Mcdermid that do a farily good job exploring investigative work. Though, like film and TV, books are designed for entertainment purposes and if this means manipulating facts slightly than that's fine for entertainment. So again not useful to learn forensic psychology in any great detail, not may be somewhat useful to see how they work alongside police investigations.