Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for American Sherlock by Kate Winkler Dawson - Wait list

American Sherlock

by Kate Winkler Dawson
ebook
Read a sample Read a sample
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.
Expand title description text
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Kindle Book

  • ISBN: 9780525539575
  • Release date: February 11, 2020

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9780525539575
  • Release date: February 11, 2020

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9780525539575
  • File size: 15767 KB
  • Release date: February 11, 2020
Loading
Loading

Formats

Kindle Book
OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

History Science True Crime Nonfiction

Languages

English

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.
Expand title description text
History Science True Crime Nonfiction