Cover of the book American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI

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American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI

byKate Winkler Dawson

Genres: Biography True Crime

Who is this book for? Readers interested in true crime, forensic science, and historical biographies.

Topics JusticeHuman NatureTechnology and Humanity

MoodReflective, Suspenseful

ViolenceMild

From the acclaimed author of Death in the Air ("Not since Devil in the White City has a book told such a harrowing tale"--Douglas Preston) comes the riveting story of the birth of criminal investigation in the twentieth century. Berkeley, California, 1933. In a lab filled with curiosities--beakers, microscopes, Bunsen burners, and hundreds upon hundreds of books--sat an investigator who would go on to crack at least two thousand cases in his forty-year career. Known as the "American Sherlock Holmes," Edward Oscar Heinrich was one of America's greatest--and first--forensic scientists, with an uncanny knack for finding clues, establishing evidence, and deducing answers with a skill that seemed almost supernatural. Heinrich was one of the nation's first expert witnesses, working in a time when the turmoil of Prohibition led to sensationalized crime reporting and only a small, systematic study of evidence. However with his brilliance, and commanding presence in both the courtroom and at crime scenes, Heinrich spearheaded the invention of a myriad of new forensic tools that police still use today, including blood spatter analysis, ballistics, lie-detector tests, and the use of fingerprints as courtroom evidence. His work, though not without its serious--some would say fatal--flaws, changed the course of American criminal investigation. Based on years of research and thousands of never-before-published primary source materials, American Sherlock captures the life of the man who pioneered the science our legal system now relies upon--as well as the limits of those techniques and the very human experts who wield them.

Language

Published on

01/01/2020

Pages

336

Format

Hardcover

ISBN

9780525539551

Price Comparison

waterstones

Paperback

9.99 £

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